


call me an amenity

by brightlight



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Aged Up, M/M, Non-Idol AU, Travel, good soft boys, i saw someone call this fic a business trip au and that's pretty accurate, some angst but a happy ending i promise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-24
Updated: 2017-10-02
Packaged: 2018-12-19 06:16:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 36,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11891772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brightlight/pseuds/brightlight
Summary: Seungcheol typically doesn't form relationships when he's travelling on business. (But then again, most people aren't Joshua Hong.)





	1. feelings on fire

**Author's Note:**

> i’m here to spread the good word of cheolsoo bc the world needs more of it, especially given how fuckin soft they are for each other. see end notes for a guide to idol cameos in this fic, bc there are a good handful. i'm posting this in ~5-8k chapters but i have most of it written, so expect updates every few days!
> 
> also...the first chapter is 80% smut....but this is a Soft fic, generally, so....idk don't get ur hopes too horny.
> 
> (also, i have never actually been to any of the locations mentioned in this fic, so apologies for any geographical mistakes. i’m tryin my best)
> 
> (title from “bad liar” by selena gomez)

Work parties are always inherently a little strange. In Seoul, the way he and his coworkers usually handle that is by drinking, a lot, and letting awkwardness fall by the wayside. It’s not Seungcheol’s favorite thing to do, but it’s business, and it’s how things are done. 

In L.A., things are a little more restrained. They’re at a bar, but no one’s drinking with quite the enthusiasm that Seungcheol has become accustomed to at work gatherings, so he’s not either, not willing to get drunk and make a fool of himself all alone. Instead, he’s mostly been hanging back with the other two members of his department in Seoul who came along for this set of meetings, but they aren’t the best company at things like this. Wonwoo’s too content to stand around people-watching, happy as a wallflower, and Sojung’s been texting her girlfriend under the bar all night and hoping no one’s noticed. 

Seungcheol takes a sip of his beer and taps his fingers against the bar, feeling a little uncomfortable. He looks over at Sojung instead of doing anything about it, the way she turns her phone screen on and off again. 

“How’s Hyunjung-noona?” Seungcheol asks. He’s aiming for casual, not teasing, but Sojung still blushes; Seungcheol’s only met Sojung’s girlfriend once, and Sojung was embarrassed about it then, too. 

“Fine,” she mumbles after an embarrassed little pause, slipping her phone into her bag. 

“Nosy,” Wonwoo says with a smirk aimed at Seungcheol, and Seungcheol just rolls his eyes.

“Yah, I’m not nosy! I’m a nice person, Wonwoo, and —” Seungcheol defends himself with a huff, but Sojung’s laughter cuts him off.

“Calm down, Seungcheol. Also, relax, would you? You’re stressing me out sitting on the edge of your seat like that,” Sojung says, gesturing vaguely toward his posture. 

The truth is Seungcheol is never very comfortable being in the L.A. office. His English is basic at best, and it puts him on edge trying to communicate and failing. There’s also a certain amount of pressure in representing his entire office, especially for him and Sojung, who are given most of the duties when they come overseas like this. Technically, the hard part’s over now — they sat in on a few meetings with other branches of the multinational corporation they work for, signed a few papers, and now they’re here with the rest of the L.A. office, celebrating the acquisition of a smaller company. (His work is boring, Jeonghan tells him all the time, but Seungcheol likes it, so he doesn’t really take it to heart.)

The hard part’s over now, but Seungcheol guesses that he’s still a little keyed up from needing to be highly aware of himself for the last few days, and he’s having trouble winding back down. “I know, sorry,” he says in apology, giving Sojung a sympathetic grimace. 

They talk amongst themselves for a while, sipping at their respective drinks and finding conversation easily (that kind of thing happens when you always stick with the same few people for the most stressful part of your job.) 

“When are you flying back?” Seungcheol asks Wonwoo a little later, only half of his beer gone. Sojung is outdrinking him at this point, and she’s half his size, but Seungcheol only laughs when she points it out. 

“I think I’m still going to leave tomorrow,” Wonwoo answers with a shrug. The acquisition was supposed to be more complicated than it ended up, and they were told to schedule a week in Los Angeles, but their job ended up done in a couple days with the L.A. office trying to get things accomplished quickly. Their boss was pleased enough with their job that they were told to keep the original flight reservations if they wanted, but Wonwoo is apparently opting out. “I don’t really want to go on vacation by myself with Jun back home.” 

“That’s sweet,” Sojung says, but she’s smirking, an eyebrow raised. Wonwoo makes a scrunched up face at her. 

“Lucky Junnie,” Seungcheol coos at him, reaching out to stroke under Wonwoo’s chin. 

“Stop, gross, you guys are worse than my mom,” Wonwoo objects backing up with an exaggerated expression of disgust. 

Sojung’s still smirking, but she says, “Me too, though. Hyunjung’s been up for a promotion and she’s supposed to hear back this week, she’ll kill me if I’m not there either way.” 

Seungcheol feels them turn to him as he takes a sip of his now warm beer, waiting for him to share his plans, and he’s only the tiniest, tiniest bit embarrassed that he doesn’t have anything (or anyone, more accurately) pulling him back to Seoul right away. “I think I’m going to stay,” he says, and they both nod at him. 

“I hope you have a good time, hyung,” Wonwoo says with a smile, and Sojung nods at that too.

The night wanders on slowly, and Sojung ends up going back to her hotel first, shaking hands with people as she leaves. When Wonwoo closes out his tab, he turns to Seungcheol with a tilt to his head, asking without speaking if Seungcheol is leaving too. 

And really, he should. He’s mostly just stood by a bar all night, nursing one and a half beers and speaking in a language only three out of the hundred people there know. But something in him, some contrary streak, shakes his head. If he’s going to be alone in L.A. for five days, he might as well start now. It’s definitely _not_ a tiny, tiny bit of insecurity, of role playing as some single bachelor who can stay out just because he wants to. That would be immature, and Choi Seungcheol is extremely mature. 

Still, he stays. Wonwoo just shrugs, leans forward to hug him like he’s been doing since they were in business school together, and calls a cab at the door. 

It’s when Wonwoo leaves that Seungcheol really takes the time to look around the crowd left at the bar. It’s not too late yet, and most everyone still seems to be present; Seungcheol doesn’t know them all well enough to spot people missing, but he knows how big the group was when they all came. It’s split into smaller groups now, probably closer friends talking together, and it is interesting to watch. He can even understand bits and pieces of conversation, but not enough to feel like he should jump into one. 

He’s absorbed enough watching the people around him that he’s a little startled when someone sits down at the stool next to him, and offers a friendly, “Hi.” 

Seungcheol turns with a start, and the man next to him laughs, covering his mouth when he does. He looks nice when he laughs, Seungcheol notices; his eyes curve prettily, and the smile visible when he lowers his hand is warm. Seungcheol remembers seeing him around in the past few days, but then, he has a memorable face. It’s soft and pretty, and all his features are striking. A couple days before, Sojung said he looked like a character from a manga, and Seungcheol and Wonwoo had to agree with her. 

“Hi,” Seungcheol chooses to say back in this particular moment, instead of focusing anymore mental energy on considering the attractiveness of the man in front of him. 

The man is still smiling at him. “Your friends left.” 

Seungcheol smiles back and nods. “They fly in the morning.” His English is choppy and he’s a little self-conscious about it, but the man doesn’t react. 

“But not you?” He asks, looking interested. 

“No. Friday.” 

The man has a still half-full drink in his hand, and he doesn’t make a move to order from the bartender, who’s a little further down the bar. Instead, he just sits there, half a smile on his lips as he looks at Seungcheol. 

His gaze is a little heady, maybe just from how pretty his eyes are, and Seungcheol feels himself squirm a little. 

“I can speak Korean, if you want,” the man says, making good on his words by saying them in Korean. 

Seungcheol blinks. “Yeah, that’s easier,” he says with an apologetic grin. “I’m surprised we didn’t meet earlier.” 

“Me too,” he says back to Seungcheol. “I’m Joshua.”

“Seungcheol.” 

Joshua’s Korean is American around the edges, but Seungcheol finds himself endeared to it, to the gaps in his vocabulary (“I mostly speak it with my parents and grandparents, so I’m missing some things”) and the way his mouth seems to have trouble with some words. He likes correcting him gently when he mispronounces something, and likes the little smile Joshua gives him when he does. 

Seungcheol likes the way Joshua’s hair is coming unstyled, the narrow cut of his shoulders, the sound of his laugh. 

It only takes ten minutes to find himself infatuated. It only takes twenty for them to sit close enough that their thighs are touching, loose smiles on both of their faces.

“Do you have any plans after this?” Joshua asks him, leaning his chin on one of his hands. The fingers of his other hand are drumming against the bar slowly, and Seungcheol glances at them errantly before the question registers with him.

His face goes warm as he murmurs back, “Not that I know of.” 

Joshua smiles bigger then, leaning against Seungcheol so their shoulders touch. “Would you like some?”

(It only takes thirty minutes for Seungcheol to get in a cab headed toward Joshua’s apartment.)

++

Seungcheol doesn’t get a good look at much of the decor except in Joshua’s bedroom, but that’s enough to mutter, “This is such a nice place,” between kisses.

It makes Joshua laugh, breathy against his jaw. “Thank you,” he says quietly before he leans back in to kiss Seungcheol breathless, a hand on his hip leading him back toward the bed. Joshua is confident, in contrast with the demure way he’s been talking since they met, and it’s so hot that Seungcheol feels concerned for his own well-being. 

When Joshua’s hand moves to unbutton his shirt, he joins in the effort without a second thought, shaking it off messily when the buttons are finished and moving onto Joshua’s. It’s fast and a little desperate, their trail through Joshua’s apartment til here, kissing at awkward angles while their arms move. Seungcheol doesn’t mind the pace — he’s been worked up since Joshua put his hand on his leg in the cab, and things have only escalated from there.

When they’re both shirtless, Joshua pulls back to look at him and makes a face. Seungcheol can’t really read it, and he feels vulnerable for a moment with Joshua looking him over. But then Joshua bites his lip and mutters, “Shit, you’re so hot,” in English. His words are stuck together and it takes Seungcheol a moment to understand, but when he does, he fights his urge to smirk by leaning in and kissing Joshua instead. 

The truth is Joshua is beautiful, even in dim lamplight as he fights to undo his belt. They’re the same height but the narrow cut of his shoulders and his hips make him seem so small next to Seungcheol, and something about that makes him feel warm. There’s a tattoo on the side of his ribcage, a quote written in English too curved for him to read well, but it’s pretty on his skin. He’s beautiful when he pushes Seungcheol down onto the bed, a smirk playing at his lips, pink and a little swollen from the kissing. He’s fucking _gorgeous_ hovering over Seungcheol in bed, caging him with his arms and smiling with half-lidded eyes, slipping a thigh between Seungcheol’s and rocking up against his half-hard dick in a way that makes his eyes flutter closed. 

“Fuck,” Seungcheol swears under his breath at the press of Joshua’s leg to his groin, and Joshua laughs a little, a breathy sound, before leaning down to press a kiss to Seungcheol’s jaw. “Is this — unprofessional?” He asks between breaths.

Joshua pauses and lifts his head before bursting into quiet laughter. Seungcheol feels himself go pink, and Joshua rolls over onto his back with the force of his amusement. “Really? Now’s when you ask? When you’re already naked?”

“I — you’ve been distracting,” Seungcheol mutters in his own defense. He shifts onto his side to look at Joshua, who’s still smiling at him.

“I think we’re good, Seungcheol,” he says with a teasing smirk. “We don’t work in the same department, or the same continent.” 

Seungcheol nods. 

“Does that mean I can go back to getting you hard?” Joshua asks, still smirking.

“Actually, I kind of want...” Seungcheol mutters, scooting over and shifting to lean overtop of Joshua “To try something.” 

“Try away,” Joshua breathes back at him, their faces close. Seungcheol grins before he kisses him again, and god, Joshua is a good kisser. He brings a hand up to Seungcheol’s side, touch light, but he grips tighter when Seungcheol moves down to kiss Joshua’s jaw, and tighter still when he gets to his neck. His neck is pretty too, because apparently so is each individual feature of Joshua’s body (which is maddening), and it’s prettier with pink marks on it. 

“You’re so beautiful,” Seungcheol finally tells him, taking a break from making a mark on Joshua’s collarbone. 

“And you’re sweet,” Joshua says back with a smile, his head leaned back against his pillows. He brings a hand up to stroke the side of Seungcheol’s face, which strikes him as incredibly intimate, and Seungcheol doesn’t hesitate to press a kiss to the inside of Joshua’s wrist while it’s nearby. 

It’s tender enough that Seungcheol’s a little embarrassed at the gesture, and he ducks his head back down to keep kissing at Joshua’s collarbones, to his chest (where he seems sensitive, gasping when Seungcheol barely presses a kiss to a nipple), fingers running across his tattoo as he dips down to Joshua’s stomach. He’s content to keep going, to kiss down to Joshua’s hipbones like he wants to do, but something stops him. 

Joshua picks himself up on his elbows, looking down at Seungcheol questioningly. “What’s up?” He asks, sounding breathless. 

“Um, just,” Seungcheol starts, reaching a hand out to run along the skin on the top of Joshua’s bellybutton, where there’s a little indent. 

“Oh,” Joshua mutters. Seungcheol looks up to find him looking a little embarrassed. “It, uh, used to be pierced. It never closed all the way.” 

Seungcheol blinks. “You had your bellybutton pierced.” 

Joshua is definitely blushing now, tipping his head back with a groan. “College was weird.” 

“Huh,” Seungcheol mutters. “I bet it looked good.” 

Joshua sighs loud enough for Seungcheol to hear. “It did.” 

Seungcheol snorts a laugh at that and leans down to kiss just above his navel softly, and Joshua lays back down with a content little exhale. Seungcheol gets back to it, pressing easy kisses to Joshua’s stomach and his hips, ignoring the way Joshua squirms but enjoying the way he parts his legs easily. His dick is hard by now, pressed up to his stomach, and Seungcheol is purposefully ignoring it, fingers reaching to stroke up and down Joshua’s thighs as he bites at his hipbones. 

“God,” Joshua mutters from above. “Please.” 

Seungcheol grins despite himself, despite the strained tone in Joshua’s voice. “Please what?”

Joshua leans up on his elbows again, opening and closing his mouth before looking down with a concentrated expression. “I...don’t know the Korean for this.” 

Seungcheol laughs, leaning against the top of Joshua’s thigh, and nods. “Okay, you don’t have to answer, then.” 

“Teach me sometime,” Joshua tells him in a breathy voice as Seungcheol leans down to take the head of Joshua’s cock in his mouth. “It should be the first thing you learn in — any language —” he gets out between pants, bringing a hand to grasp on Seungcheol’s shoulder. 

Honestly, it’s been a while since Seungcheol’s done this, and he feels a little rusty. Still, it only takes a few minutes for him to get a rhythm down between his hand on the lower part of Joshua’s shaft and his head on the tip, and when he does, Joshua offers a low groan, his fingers digging into Seungcheol’s shoulder. 

The noises Joshua makes are soft but they hit Seungcheol hard, and he’s a little desperate to make them keep happening. Maybe too desperate, though, because after another little moan, Joshua sits up to murmur, “Slow down, babe.” It comes out half in English, but Seungcheol gets the message quick, feeling warm at the term of endearment. 

For all intents and purposes, they’ve known each other for about an hour. But he likes the sound of the English diminutive heavy on Joshua’s tongue, aimed down at him lazily. He pulls off of Joshua for a moment and keeps his hand pumping slowly, following directions, and Joshua lets out another exhale, the muscles in his thighs flexing. 

“I don’t want to finish like this,” Joshua says, looking down at him with hooded eyes. 

Seungcheol hums, urging Joshua to go on, and he sits up a little. “I want...shit, I don’t have the vocabulary for this,” Joshua says around a weak laugh, hips shifting up into Seungcheol’s strokes.

Seungcheol laughs back, taking his hand off of Joshua’s dick to sit up on his knees in front of Joshua. “Just tell me what to do.” 

“Very trusting of you,” Joshua teases, leaning forward to kiss Seungcheol lightly.

“What can I say? You look trustworthy,” Seungcheol mutters back with half a grin. 

Joshua only smiles back at him. “Get on your back.”

Seungcheol doesn’t think twice before he does just that, flopping over inelegantly and making Joshua laugh under his breath as he gets up to rifle through his dresser. When he gets back on the bed, he sets down a familiar-looking plastic bottle of lube (which look the same in every country, apparently) and a condom. 

“Is this okay?” Joshua asks, settling between Seungcheol’s legs. “For me — to you? My fingers?” He’s trying hard to search for words that will work, and the concentrated look on his face is endearing, so Seungcheol finds himself smiling again. He thinks errantly that he usually doesn’t smile this much when he hooks up with near-strangers, but he doesn’t have the energy to think about that now. 

“More than okay,” Seungcheol says with a nod, spreading his legs further. 

“Good,” Joshua says, sounding pleased. “Tell me to stop if — if you don’t like something.” 

Seungcheol thinks to himself that he doesn’t really see that happening; Joshua has Seungcheol so worked up, he could ask for just about anything right now and Seungcheol would have to really search for a reason to deny him. 

The first press of Joshua’s slick finger to him sends a chill up his spine, and the discomfort doesn’t last very long. (It may have been a while since he was last with someone, but it hasn’t been long since this experience, even if it’s less rewarding by himself.) Joshua runs a hand up and down Seungcheol’s stomach as he adds a second finger, and it’s already good. Seungcheol feels his legs tighten against Joshua, and he grabs the sheet underneath his hand when Joshua starts thrusting, slow and deliberate. 

“You okay?” Joshua asks him in his sweet voice, and Seungcheol grins as much as he’s physically able. 

“Yeah, I’m fine. You don’t have to be so careful, I have some practice with this.” 

Joshua smiles, the hand on Seungcheol’s stomach coming down to squeeze Seungcheol’s thigh. “Sometimes guys bigger than me are a little sensitive about this.” 

Seungcheol snorts weakly. “That’s stupid. People are stupid.” 

“I agree,” Joshua says wryly, leaning forward to press a kiss to the corner of Seungcheol’s lips. “Not you though, apparently.” 

“I like to think not,” Seungcheol agrees softly, lifting himself up to kiss Joshua properly. It’s still a good kiss, despite the awkward angle and the way Joshua is contorted to keep his position inside Seungcheol. When they break apart, Seungcheol lies back down expectantly, and Joshua apparently heeds his words, his pace getting quicker and a little more rough. Seungcheol hums low in his throat, hips moving back against Joshua’s hand in their own rhythm. 

Seungcheol bites his lip when Joshua works up to three fingers, moaning in a hoarse voice at the feeling of fingers against his prostate. “God, you’re _so hot_ ,” Joshua mutters mostly to himself, judging by the volume and the English, but Seungcheol still hears, and it makes him feel a little overwhelmed. He can’t think of much else to do in response besides keep moving his hips, spread his legs wider and keen into Joshua’s touch. 

“I’m good,” he rasps out after a moan, after another stroke from Joshua that hit the edge of his prostate in just the right way. “Come on, I’m good.” 

Joshua hums with a nod, pulling out slowly from Seungcheol, who’s busy grasping around for the condom. He sits up when he finally finds it, tearing it open quickly so he can lean forward to roll it onto Joshua’s length.

Things go quick, neither of them bothering to say much; the room is quiet except for their breathing, the little noises that release from both of them when Joshua presses in slowly, leaning down over Seungcheol with his eyes closed. 

Joshua’s face is a goddamn work of art, the way his lips just barely hang open, the slight curve to his eyebrows. Seungcheol is overwhelmed by the urge to kiss him, like if he doesn’t, Joshua will disappear like an apparition, too beautiful to stay for long. So he does, pushing himself up to meet Joshua’s lips, and they kiss hungry and desperate as Joshua finds a slow rhythm. At some point their hands find each other, gripping tight, and the whole thing feels a lot more intimate than Seungcheol ever expected it to.

They barely know each other, but Seungcheol trusts his gut, and his gut trusts the way Joshua’s laugh sounds, the cut of his smile. He trusts the way Joshua holds his hands and kisses him, more kind than he has any reason to be, and god if it doesn’t make Seungcheol feel soft as hell. It’s the kind of sex he’s had with people he’d been with for years, easy and smooth, both of them laughing, and it feels kind of powerful to have it here and now, with a man he barely knows, in an entire other country, both of them trying to fill in gaps in language. 

Joshua ducks his head to Seungcheol’s neck, his breath coming out fast, and Seungcheol grips his hand tighter, thrusting back against Joshua to get deeper. Joshua lets go of one of his hands and brings it between them, pumping Seungcheol so slowly that he feels like all his nerves are on fire. It’s all becoming kind of a lot, and Seungcheol feels himself lose control over the way his legs are tightening, the groans coming from his mouth.

“Are you close?” Seungcheol asks, voice quiet with Joshua’s face so close to his.

“Mhm,” Joshua gets out, strained, but then he stops thrusting for a moment to breathe heavy on Seungcheol’s shoulder.

Seungcheol furrows his eyebrows. “You okay?”

“Yeah. I’m great,” Joshua says with a laugh. “Just wanted to catch my breath a little.” 

Seungcheol makes an understanding noise, and they just lie there for a minute, pressed together tightly. Seungcheol lets go of Joshua’s hand to wrap an arm around him instead, savoring the feeling of holding him so close. A voice in his head tells him that this is embarrassing (a voice that sounds a little like Jeonghan’s), but Joshua makes a content little noise before he picks his head up, eyes dazed, to kiss Seungcheol again. It’s softer now, their kisses coming between slow breaths, and it just feels so damn nice. 

When Joshua pulls back, he picks himself back up a little and smiles down at Seungcheol. “Okay. Let’s finish, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Seungcheol agrees easily, and despite how hard he is and how good Joshua feels inside him, the corners of his lips turn up. 

And there’s still a softness there, still a warmth between them, but Joshua goes a little more confident, his thrusts getting rougher and quicker, more purposeful. It’s hard and it’s fast and it’s good, and when Joshua’s hand finds Seungcheol’s dick again, it only takes three strokes for him to come with a choked-off moan. Seungcheol feels his body go tight, all his muscles contracting, and Joshua moans at that feeling in turn. It’s a messy few minutes, Seungcheol losing his ability to track time as his orgasm washes over him, and the next thing he knows, Joshua is coming too, panting loud against Seungcheol’s ear.

Joshua lets out a low groan and Seungcheol nods weakly, breath still knocked out of him. It takes a minute for them to come back to themselves, for Joshua to pull out and deal with the condom, for both of them to wash off lazily with a towel. When they’re both clean in bed, sitting next to each other boneless, Seungcheol just mutters, “God, that was good.” 

“That was really, really good,” Joshua agrees quietly, leaning over to rest on Seungcheol’s shoulder. “Will you stay the night?”

It’s early enough that really, Seungcheol has no reason not to leave, go back to his hotel room and leave this as what it was intended to be. They had never met before this, and there was no reason to think they’d meet again, and this could just be a good night and nothing else. But Joshua is still leaning on his shoulder, fingers tracing patterns on Seungcheol’s bare skin, and what he really wants is to lie down next to him and keep this thread of warmth between them, because it feels so nice.

So Seungcheol nods. “If you want me to.” 

“I want you to,” Joshua tells him with a smile, leaning over more fully so that his whole body is resting against Seungcheol’s. 

They lay around in the dim lighting of Joshua’s bedroom (they never bothered to turn on more than a lamp), talking for a little while, about the photographs on Joshua’s walls, Korean food, any other passing thoughts that walk by. It’s just so comfortable, is the thing — both Joshua’s bed, which has a very nice mattress and soft sheets, but also just this. All of this. Joshua feels so comfortable. 

“You’re leaving on Friday?” Joshua asks at one point, when they’re both sleepy and their eyes are mostly closed. 

Seungcheol hums in the affirmative, turning over onto his side to face Joshua. 

“Are you doing anything tomorrow? I could maybe show you the city, if you wanted.” 

Seungcheol barely has to think about it before he smiles and nods. “Yeah. Let’s do that.” 

And Joshua’s bed really is comfortable, because he sleeps damn well that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> non-svt idols: sojung (exy) and hyunjung (seola) from wjsn


	2. the sky's more blue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “So what does showing me around the city entail?” Seungcheol asks, slipping his wallet and phone into his pockets.
> 
> “Well,” Joshua says, keys jingling in his hand. He lowers his sunglasses when they get outside and turns to look at Seungcheol. “Do you like brunch?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (chapter title from "malibu" by miley cyrus)

Joshua’s car is small, yellow, and a little run-down. It looks old, in a way that’s almost charming but stops short. 

“I have the rest of the week off,” Joshua explains on their drive to Seungcheol’s hotel, since the only clothes on him were a rumpled suit. “My vacation time runs out next month and I still had a week left, so I figured I’d better take it.” 

He’s in sunglasses, which look great on him, and Seungcheol leans back against the passenger seat with a raised eyebrow and half a smirk. “Exciting.” 

Joshua just laughs, audible over the rush of wind coming from the window.

It’s only after Seungcheol gets dressed that he realizes his blue jeans and white t-shirt matches Joshua’s, and they both look at each other a little pink-cheeked. 

“Cute,” Joshua decides eventually, and Seungcheol snorts. 

“Yeah, real cute that we both have boring taste,” Seungcheol says with a smile.

“Hey,” Joshua says, feigning offense. “I wear this because I look good in it.” 

And he’s really not wrong there. His jeans are tight and rolled up at the ankles, and his t-shirt is a size too big for him, like it’s borrowed from someone else. 

“So what does showing me around the city entail?” Seungcheol asks, slipping his wallet and phone into his pockets.

“Well,” Joshua says, keys jingling in his hand. He lowers his sunglasses when they get outside and turns to look at Seungcheol. “Do you like brunch?”

 

 

Americans love brunch. This is something Seungcheol knows after coming to California for work about six times, because he has gotten invited to brunch about ten times. Most of them he declined, for one reason or another, but this one he was happy to accept. For one, instead of a modern-looking restaurant where everyone orders champagne and eggs benedict, they’re at an incredibly busy Mexican place downtown with like ten tacos in front of them. For two, instead of work acquaintances (excluding Joshua), he’s sitting across from a weird group of people who he doesn’t know, but who are almost absurdly friendly. 

“Yo!” Joshua called when they walked in, waving to a small group already at a table. One of them raised their hand back at him, the other holding a taco.

“This is Seungcheol, he’s from Seoul,” Joshua said in quick explanation, gesturing to Seungcheol, who waved amicably. Honestly, he was mostly trying to talk himself down from being anxious about his English, but apparently that wasn’t necessary, because the pretty guy sitting on the other side of the table immediately replied, “Ah, friend!” In Korean.

Joshua snorted and pointed to him. “That’s Johnny.” He turned to the other side of the table and rattles off easily, “That’s Amber, and Amy.” The two women in question waved at him, both smiling, and Seungcheol smiled back. 

Unsurprisingly, Joshua’s friends turn out to be good people. Johnny and Amy keep the conversation a mix of Korean and English, which Amber complained about but joined. “My Korean’s shitty, man,” Amber warned Seungcheol, and he shrugged. 

“So’s my English.”

That made Amber laugh and raise a hand to high-five him. “Alright, so between us, we can maybe accomplish two whole languages.” 

“So why’re you hanging out with this one?” Amber asks now, pointing at Joshua, who rolls his eyes.

Seungcheol is considering how exactly to answer, but Joshua steps in when Seungcheol pauses. “We work together,” he says, and leaves it at that with a grin at Seungcheol. 

“Yeah, okay,” Johnny says with a snort, earning Joshua’s glare. 

Amber slugs Johnny on the shoulder with a laugh. “Let him be.” 

Amy turns to Joshua and asks, “Enjoying your fake vacation?” She smiles in a way that looks a little sarcastic, and Seungcheol enjoys it. She seems older than all the rest of them, more put-together in her nice outfit and expensive-looking sunglasses, but she’s warm and funny and Seungcheol likes her, he thinks.

“Yeah, for once I’m free during the day like you jerks,” Joshua says with a grin. He turns to Seungcheol then, like he realized there’s some context that Seungcheol wouldn’t know, and explains, “They’re all artsy types, freelancers, making plans without me while I’m at work.” 

“Oh, really? That’s so cool,” Seungcheol says honestly around a bite of taco. “What do you do?”

“Amy owns an art gallery,” Amber answers, looking at her with a smile. “Because she’s all fancy and cool.” 

“Stop,” Amy says, rolling her eyes and hitting Amber’s shoulder. They look at each other, lingering, and Seungcheol gets the sense that they’re more than friends. 

“I’m just a DJ. I used to live in Seoul, actually, when Amy lived there. It’s a cool city,” Amber says, her large grin still in place. Seungcheol nods appreciatively, thinking errantly that she looks the part, with her tattoos and her backwards cap. She reminds Seungcheol of the people that hang around Jihoon’s studio sometimes, the other producers he works with. “And Johnny’s an actor.” 

“I’m a waiter,” Johnny says, rolling his eyes. Amber gives him a look. 

“Stop, don’t give me a speech,” Johnny says with a laugh, grabbing the last taco from his plate. “I’m an actor, I’m an actor.” 

Seungcheol wonders vaguely how Joshua, a marketing analyst at a multinational corporation, ended up friends with a bunch of, like… _cool_ people. Seungcheol’s friends are cool too, he supposes, and maybe it’s just because they’re in L.A., where things in general seem a little cooler, even if it’s just the novelty. 

The rest of the meal is good. Johnny is funny, and Amy and Amber make jokes at each other’s expense a lot, making each other and everyone else laugh. They all keep recommending things for Seungcheol to do in Los Angeles, and Joshua starts to laugh when the list gets too long. Joshua’s friends are fun, and Seungcheol only struggles with words a handful of times (no more than Amber, who ends up relying on Amy to translate words she doesn’t know in Korean.)

Joshua’s smiling on their way out, spinning his keys on their ring in his hand. “I hope you enjoyed that. If not, I’m sorry. I mostly brought you for the tacos.”

“They were good tacos,” Seungcheol says with a grin, getting into Joshua’s car. “I like your friends.” 

Joshua turns to aim his smile at Seungcheol, slipping his sunglasses down from where they were perched on his head. “Thanks. Me too. They’re pretty good.” 

“How long have you known them?” Seungcheol asks, curious. They seemed overly familiar with each other, in a way that reminds Seungcheol of his own friends. 

“Years, now. I met Amber when I was in my first year of college. Johnny too, actually. So almost ten years, I guess?” Joshua says, looking like he’s doing the math in his head. 

Seungcheol nods with a grin. “That’s cool.” 

Joshua nods back, his lips upturned. Seungcheol likes how Joshua looks when he’s about to smile. 

“So,” Joshua starts as he buckles his seatbelt. “Have you been to Venice beach before?”

++

The boardwalk is loud. Mostly because of the drum circle happening about ten feet away, but everything else happening helps, too. Within his line of sight, there’s groups of people walking around in bathing suits with beach bags, a man carrying a small dog in a backpack, and a kid busking with a boombox who’s attracted a crowd around him.

“It’s less busy since it’s a weekday,” Joshua tells him, and then he laughs when Seungcheol gives him a look. “You should see it on a Saturday.” 

They walk down the boardwalk, past people with little booths on one side and restaurants on the other. A skateboarder almost runs into them and Joshua rolls his eyes after he tugs Seungcheol out of the way.

“I’ve never seen this many people skateboarding,” Seungcheol says with a laugh. 

“Yeah, it’s a big deal here. I used to skate in college,” Joshua says with a sheepish grin.

Seungcheol laughs. “Really?”

“I just had one of those small plastic ones. It was green. Amber taught me,” Joshua offers in explanation.

“You sound like you were fun in college,” Seungcheol says with a smirk. “You know, the bellybutton piercing, the skateboarding —” 

Joshua hits his arm with a laugh. “I’ve always been fun.” 

There’s a lot of places to walk, every square inch packed with stores and businesses and people doing things interesting enough to watch. Seungcheol hopes Joshua isn’t bored with it, because he’s enjoying himself.

“I wish I brought sunglasses,” Seungcheol mutters as he shields his eyes from the sun, bright and hot overhead. 

Joshua hums in reply, before walking over to one of the little souvenir stalls on their left. “Here,” he says, gesturing to a display of cheap sunglasses. He grabs his wallet from his pocket. “Pick one.” 

Seungcheol follows him, frowning at the gesture. “Joshua, I can’t let you —” 

“They’re five dollars and I don’t think you have cash on you,” Joshua says with a smile. “Don’t worry about it. Pick one.” 

The stall vendor looks bored with them after he realizes they’re not speaking English, and looks on at their interaction lazily. Seungcheol sighs, resigned, before walking in front of the sunglasses display and grabbing a pair that look vaguely like the ones he has at home. “These.” 

“Put them on,” Joshua instructs, and Seungcheol gives him an embarrassed kind of grin before he does. Joshua smiles in response. “They look nice.” 

He turns to the vendor and switches to English that Seungcheol doesn’t pay attention to, instead choosing to focus on the way that Joshua looped his fingers around Seungcheol’s wrist after he put his change away and kept it there to lead Seungcheol back onto the boardwalk. 

It’s stupid. Seungcheol’s almost twenty-eight years old. But there’s something about the way Joshua moves his hand so he’s holding Seungcheol’s that makes him feel a little goddamn weak. 

Joshua turns to him when he does it, like he’s asking permission, and Seungcheol just laces their fingers together better, enjoying the pleased look on Joshua’s face. 

There’s a part of Seungcheol that knows this whole thing is silly. He’s leaving in three days, and it shouldn’t matter anyway, because this isn’t really anything. It’s impermanent at best, meaningless at worst. There’s a part of him that wants to ask what Joshua’s doing, because he sure is doing it. But the bigger part of him is enjoying it, enjoying the way it feels to have his hand held (which he hasn’t felt in kind of a while, actually), enjoying sharing smiles with a guy who he likes. He likes him a lot, if he’s being honest — maybe the most you can like someone you met less than twenty-four hours beforehand. 

Seungcheol’s in a different city, a different country, and it’s like he slipped into a different life, too. A life where he takes weekdays to stroll around with a boy he’s seeing, with the sun warming his shoulders. And he is not opposed to that, even a little. 

So when Joshua asks, “Do you want ice cream?” Seungcheol nods with a smile. 

“Yeah, sounds good.” 

“There’s this place down a little bit, they’re the best…” Joshua trails off, looking down the boardwalk to gauge distance, Seungcheol guesses. 

And when Joshua pays for the ice cream too, offering his one for Seungcheol to hold when he grabs his wallet, he turns to Seungcheol and says, “Buy me dinner later and we’re even, alright?” Seungcheol nods with a smile. 

“It’s a deal.”

++

“Do you have plans tomorrow?” Joshua asks him between hurried kisses against the wall of Seungcheol’s hotel room.

(Dinner went well.) 

“Nope,” Seungcheol breathes back, hand rucking up the bottom hem of Joshua’s shirt. 

“We could go — to the beach —” Joshua manages, breath ragged as he looks down to unbutton Seungcheol’s jeans.

Seungcheol leans forward to kiss him again, hands holding his jaw, before he pulls back. “Whatever you want.” 

Joshua’s expression softens for a moment, going slack and open, before it hardens back into a smirk. “Okay,” he says quietly before he walks them forward and pushes Seungcheol down onto the bed.

++

Joshua had offered to lend him a bathing suit, and Seungcheol could only respond with raised eyebrows.

“Joshua,” Seungcheol started kindly. “I don’t think we’re the same size.” 

“Oh,” Joshua muttered. “Yeah. Maybe not.”

So instead they stopped at a clothing store on the way to the beach Joshua claimed was “the best one,” where Seungcheol grabbed a pair of red trunks that were honestly shorter than he was used to wearing. He wore them out of the store, matching Joshua’s half-swim trunks outfit, and Joshua gave him a little smirk when he first saw them. 

“What?” Seungcheol asks defensively. 

Joshua shakes his head. “No, nothing.”

They get re-situated in the car, but Joshua still looks amused. “What is it?” Seungcheol asks again. 

“Nothing!” Joshua replies with a laugh. “You just look good in those.” 

“Oh,” Seungcheol says, feeling a little flattered. 

There’s a beat of quiet, the sound of radio static when it gets caught between channels. “What’s the word in Korean for the mark you make on someone when you kiss them?” Joshua asks.

“A hickey?” Seungcheol offers.

“Ah. Okay. I can also see a hickey on the inside of your thigh.” 

“Joshua!” Seungcheol huffs, reaching out to slap his arm and close his legs where they were spread on the seat. 

“I’m driving!” Joshua says, but he’s laughing loudly, looking pleased with himself. 

The beach Joshua takes them to is a bit of a drive, but mostly empty when they get there. It’s beautiful, so close to nearby mountains, and it makes for pretty scenery. 

“I grew up on this beach,” Joshua says after they spread a blanket down, weighing down the corners with their bags. 

“Oh, right on it? Is this a mermaid situation?” Seungcheol asks, earning a little punch to his arm and a “Yah!” from Joshua. 

“My parents always took me on weekends and stuff. I really like it here.” 

Seungcheol turns to see the content little expression on Joshua’s face, and smiles. “Thanks for taking me here.” 

Joshua hums, leaning over to kiss Seungcheol lightly, which surprises him. Joshua must feel him go tense, because he backs up with an apologetic grin. “Sorry. Was that not okay?” 

“No, you’re fine,” Seungcheol says, shaking his head. “Sorry. I don’t usually kiss men in public.” 

“I get it,” Joshua says with a nod. “As far as places to kiss men, this is an alright one, though. For one, Los Angeles is a pretty okay place in general. For two, there’s like four people on this beach. You’re not obligated to kiss me, though.” 

“What if I’d like to kiss you?” Seungcheol asks with half a smirk. Joshua’s right, the beach is almost empty, and Joshua would know better than he would.

“I’d like it, too,” Joshua teases, propping himself up with his hands behind him, and he lets Seungcheol come to him this time.

It’s a nice kiss, the sound and smell of the ocean around them, the warmth of the sun on their backs. It’s the kind of thing that doesn’t feel quite real, and Seungcheol reasons that maybe it isn’t. 

Joshua’s already tan, and he looks nice spread out on the blanket under the sun with his eyes closed and his t-shirt neatly folded near his bag. Seungcheol resists the urge to run a hand down Joshua’s side just because he likes the feeling of it, and instead follows suit, lets himself get hot under the sun before he wants to jump in the water. 

“Come on,” he urges Joshua, pulling him up by the arm. “We’re at the beach. You’ve only done the sand part.” 

“Someone should watch our stuff,” Joshua argues, but it sounds weak. 

Seungcheol looks around, gesturing to themselves, the woman with a large dog, and the family with a baby who are at the beach at eleven AM on a Wednesday. 

Joshua rolls his eyes, but lets Seungcheol pull him up and toward the water. At some point they end up running like they’re younger than they are, jumping into a wave that knocks them both down onto their asses in the ocean. Joshua’s laughing, rubbing saltwater from his eyes, and Seungcheol feels a pang of something like longing run through him. 

They’re both still just a little damp when they get back in the car, Seungcheol’s hair sticky with salt and his skin pink from the sun. There’s something soft with guitars playing again on the radio, and it’s nice to drive to. 

“Do you play guitar?” Seungcheol asks, leaning back against his seat.

Joshua turns to him for a moment, eyebrows raised, before turning back to the road. “Yeah, I do. What gave me away?”

“Callouses,” Seungcheol answers easily. When Joshua furrows his eyebrows at the word, Seungcheol gestures to his fingertips. 

Joshua nods. “Ah.” 

“Play me something sometime,” Seungcheol says, and Joshua laughs.

“No way,” he answers, shaking his head and smiling.

“Why not?” Seungcheol asks. “I thought that’s the whole point of learning guitar, to play for someone.”

“You think that when you learn it, but it’s actually super embarrassing and weird to just like, serenade someone. Like, who does that?” Joshua asks, making a face. 

“Do you sing, too?” Seungcheol is curious now. 

Joshua looks like he’s considering. “I’m okay.” 

Seungcheol cracks a smile. “See, I want to hear.” 

“Maybe.” 

“I always liked boys who played guitar,” Seungcheol says with half a grin, glancing over at the way Joshua’s profile is backlit by the sun. 

Joshua smiles, keeping his eyes on the road but moving one of his hands to squeeze Seungcheol’s knee. “Yeah? I always liked boys that liked boys who played guitar.” 

“Convenient,” Seungcheol laughs, putting his hand on top of Joshua’s just because he can. 

“You hungry? We still need to get In N’ Out,” Joshua tells him, still smiling. 

“The fast food place?” Seungcheol asks, eyebrows furrowed. He remembers seeing signs for it along the highway earlier.

Joshua shakes his head, looking wistful. “It’s more than that.”

“Alright, calm down and bring me to the hamburger restaurant, Joshua,” Seungcheol says with a snort.

They keep their hands on Seungcheol’s knee, fingers intertwined, the whole way there.

 

 

L.A. is a very big city, Seungcheol is coming to realize. Theoretically, he knew that; he’s been here before, and also he has consumed media over his lifetime. In practice though, Joshua driving them around to different little neighborhoods, it feels bigger than he used to think it was.

“I’m going to this art thing tonight,” Joshua told him earlier, after he forced Seungcheol to eat several cheeseburgers (which didn’t take much forcing, admittedly.) 

“Oh?” Seungcheol asked, interested. 

“Yeah, a girl I know has an exhibition at Amy’s gallery, so I told her I’d come.” Joshua ate a french fry covered in sauce, onions and cheese and somehow made it look delicate. “Do you want to come?”

“Only if you want me to come,” Seungcheol answered back easily. 

And Joshua smiled and said, “I want you to come.” 

So Seungcheol comes. 

“She’s still in college,” Joshua says now, craning his neck to look for a parking spot. “I mostly know her through my younger friends, but she’s a good kid. She’s a photographer, mostly.” 

The exhibition is really nice. It’s photographs of the same girl over and over again, face sometimes questioning, other times caught in a seemingly candid smile, and some without much of an expression at all. Pictures of her in bed wearing a bra and a pair of men’s boxers looking up at the camera, brushing her teeth in front of a mirror, and some pictures that just show her from behind, sitting on a porch or pushing a grocery cart. They’re sweet photographs, intimate, and Seungcheol doesn’t really know anything about photography, but something about the lighting in them makes them feel warm. One of the largest features the girl looking angry in a nice dress, a glare on her face, and across the room is a same-sized photograph of the girl’s face nuzzled into someone else’s neck with a smile, the photo obviously taken from above.

“These are beautiful,” Seungcheol says, looking up at a picture of the girl holding the neck of a beer bottle in front of a campfire, eyes looking down at the ground. 

Joshua smiles at him. “Yeah, they’re really cool. I know her, too.” He points at the girl in the photograph.

“Josh!” A voice says excitedly, and Seungcheol turns to see a girl waving at him. She looks young, the ends of her hair dyed a faded blue, and Joshua waves back. 

“Hey!” He says in return, walking toward her to give her a quick hug. “These are great, Kyla.” 

The girl looks a little sheepish, rolling her eyes. “Thanks.” 

“This is Seungcheol,” Joshua says, gesturing to him. “He’s visiting town.”

“Hi,” Seungcheol offers with a smile. “Your pictures are beautiful.” 

For a second, he worries that he used the wrong word, because she looks embarrassed, but then she just replies, “Thank you. I’m Kyla, it’s good to meet you.” 

“Where’s Shan?” Joshua asks her.

Kyla points across the room, where the girl in the photographs is there in the flesh, chatting with a couple other girls. “She’s embarrassed,” Kyla says quietly with a smile. “But she came.” 

Like she could hear them talking about her, the girl (Shan?) walks over then, looking roughly the same as she does in the photographs, but her hair a little bit shorter. “Hey, Josh,” she says easily, leaning forward to hug him. She turns to Seungcheol, looking at Joshua with a raised eyebrow. 

“Seungcheol. He’s from Seoul,” Joshua answers simply, apparently not feeling like giving a detailed explanation. 

“Ah, hello,” the girl aims at him in Korean. “I’m Shannon.”

“Can all of your friends speak Korean?” Seungcheol asks Joshua with a laugh, and it makes Shannon and Kyla grin too. 

“Not all of them, but when you go to a Korean church, it happens,” Joshua answers with a grin.

“Yeah, between church and all the fact that you were president of an Asian LGBT group in college,” Shannon agrees, rolling her eyes. 

“Really?” Seungcheol asks, giving Joshua a smile. 

Joshua rolls his eyes, then. “It wasn’t a big deal. I just did it because Amber asked me to once she graduated.” 

“So modest,” Shannon teases. She’s standing with her arm around Kyla’s waist now, an easy kind of gesture. “It’s good to see you, though.” Shannon is still speaking Korean, assumedly for Seungcheol’s benefit, which is sweet of her. 

“Yeah, thanks, man,” Kyla says in English. She looks sheepish again. 

It’s funny, watching Joshua’s friends flit up to him over the course of half an hour or so, different people who Joshua usually gives some explanation of after they leave. Amy makes an appearance at some point, looking very put-together with Amber in tow, both of them hugging Kyla and Shannon as well as Joshua. At one point, Joshua is off having a conversation that Seungcheol couldn’t hope to keep up with, and Seungcheol wanders over to look at the photographs again. 

He doesn’t really notice Kyla standing there until he almost bumps into her, and he apologizes hastily. She waves him off with a smile, and they stand there quietly, both of them looking at the wall. “Which is your favorite?” He asks in slow English, and she hums like she’s in thought. 

“That one,” she decides ultimately, pointing at one of Shannon tucked into a kitchen chair that looks worse for wear, the blue paint peeling off of it. She’s in an overlarge t-shirt and she looks concentrated as she peels an orange, sitting with her legs pulled up to her chest.

“Why?” Seungcheol asks curiously. 

“Well,” Kyla says, before switching to Korean that sounds a little less practiced than Shannon’s. “The whole thing is about the quiet parts of being in love. The parts you don’t notice, I guess. I wanted to notice them. And I really love when she sits like that,” Kyla says, sounding embarrassed and laughing at herself. 

Seungcheol feels fond of her and the literal labor of love he’s standing in and nods at her. “I like that one too,” he tells her with a grin.

Shannon comes by not long after that, slipping her arm around Kyla’s waist again. “Hey, I saw your professor and told her I’d grab you,” she says, brushing Kyla’s bangs straight while she talks. 

They both wave goodbye to Seungcheol as they walk off, and he waves back, only a little embarrassed over how sweet he finds them. 

In the car after the exhibit, as Joshua drives in the general direction of Seungcheol’s hotel, Seungcheol looks out the window at the lights of the city. This is the art district, Joshua told him, and he notices the walls of buildings that have been turned into murals as they pass them.

“I don’t know that I’ve ever been in love with someone like that,” Seungcheol says quietly, thinking of the photographs of Shannon and the way Kyla looked at them. 

Joshua is quiet for a moment. “Me either,” he admits eventually. 

Quiet again, before Joshua says, “They’re really good kids.” 

“Yeah, it seemed like it,” Seungcheol tells him with a smile. 

When they pull up to Seungcheol’s hotel, there’s a moment of hesitation before Seungcheol asks, “Are you staying?”

“If you want me to,” Joshua says back, the corner of his lips upturned.

“You can always assume that I want you to,” Seungcheol says with his own grin in return. 

 

 

That night, they take things slower, like the sight of two people so obviously in love made them both slow down a little. Or maybe it’s just that on their third consecutive night of sex, the desperation is wearing off a little. All Seungcheol knows is that Joshua looks so damn beautiful underneath him, eyes mostly closed as he half-moans Seungcheol’s name, and he looks even more beautiful lying on his chest afterward. 

“Tomorrow, let’s go on a hike,” Joshua says quietly as Seungcheol’s fingers brush through his hair gently. 

“That sounds nice,” Seungcheol says back, voice a little raspy. His fingers keep combing through Joshua’s hair, resting at the nape of his neck before coming up to the crown of his head, stroking over the shell of his ear delicately. 

Joshua presses a soft kiss to Seungcheol’s chest, and it makes something in Seungcheol melt a little, neither of them saying much else before they fall asleep like that, with Joshua’s head resting on Seungcheol’s heartbeat.

++

They get a late start the next day, putting off getting out of bed to instead kiss lazily in the hotel room. It’s all strangely idyllic, Joshua lying beside him naked in white sheets, laughing and teasing him into getting breakfast in bed from room service. They eat scrambled eggs and toast, smiling at each other the whole time and taking some time to kiss afterward, too.

By the time they start hiking, it’s after three, and it takes them a while to get to the highest part of the trail, neither of them very quick at hiking or very in shape, seemingly.

The view from the top is admittedly pretty beautiful. Worth an hour of sweating and sore legs? Seungcheol’s not sure yet. But it’s beautiful. 

It’s empty here, and the two of them sit down on the hard ground to look over the view of green mountains and palm trees in the distance. They haven’t been talking much since they started hiking, conserving breath to pant, and now they pass a water bottle between them, the sound of birds and wind rushing past them.

“I leave tomorrow,” Seungcheol says quietly, looking out over the scenery instead of over at Joshua.

“Yeah,” Joshua says back. “I know.” He screws the cap back on the bottle of water, and then it’s quiet again. 

“Is it stupid that I really like this?” Seungcheol asks. This time he feels brave enough to look over at Joshua, who looks a little sad as he stares out over the mountains. 

“No, I don’t think so.” Joshua’s voice is quieter than usual. “I really like it, too.” 

Seungcheol wants to say a hundred things that will lay him bare, put his neck on the line. _I’ve never fallen for someone this fast before_ , for one. _Everything with you feels so easy_ , for another. But those are scary to say to someone you’ve known for three days, and Seungcheol flies six thousand miles away in less than twenty-four hours. 

“You know, I travel to Seoul for work, too,” Joshua tells him.

Seungcheol blinks. “You hadn’t mentioned.” 

“Every few months or so, yeah.” 

“Well, you should let me know the next time you’re in town. I can return some favors,” Seungcheol says with a small grin. 

“You should too.” Joshua returns his smile, and both of them know they’re more muted than they have been in the past couple days.

“I don’t know what I would have done in L.A. without you,” Seungcheol tells Joshua, trying to brush off the somber mood that fell over them. 

“Gone to see Hollywood, probably,” Joshua replies, scrunching his nose in distaste. Seungcheol only laughs, because he’s probably right. 

They stay up at the top of the trail for a while, sitting close together with their hands resting on top of each other. Eventually, Joshua leans his head to rest on Seungcheol’s shoulder, and Seungcheol can feel his chest constrict at the contact. 

“You should stay at mine tonight, I’ll drive you to the airport tomorrow,” Joshua offers. 

Seungcheol nods, moves his arm to reach around the back of Joshua’s narrow shoulders. 

The walk back downhill goes quicker, their hands linked the entire time. They stop to rest halfway down, the sun getting lower in the sky now that it’s almost the evening, and Joshua looks warm lit up by the sun. An idea strikes Seungcheol, who pulls out his phone and barely notices the message from Jeonghan asking about how L.A. is. He opens his camera instead, and once Joshua realizes, he snorts and asks, “What are you doing?”

Maybe it’s because of Kyla and Shannon the night before, he’s not sure. All he knows is he wants to remember this, Joshua glowing under the late afternoon sun, a cap keeping the light out of his eyes as he stands in front of something picturesque. “I just want a souvenir,” he offers in explanation. 

Joshua rolls his eyes but smiles anyway, a camera kind of smile. It’s still pretty, and Seungcheol smiles back when he puts his phone away. 

“Come on,” Joshua urges, grabbing his hand again and pulling him down the trail, and Seungcheol happily obliges.

 

 

They order a pizza for dinner, after Seungcheol gathers his things from his hotel room and moves them all to Joshua’s living room instead. 

“Delivery takes forever here,” Seungcheol complains, stomach rumbling. He’s changed out of his sweaty hiking clothes and into a soft pair of shorts and a t-shirt and he slumps onto Joshua’s couch, body sore from walking and climbing. 

“I know,” Joshua agrees. “That’s my favorite part of Seoul. You can get food in like fifteen minutes” 

“That’s a little sad, that it’s your favorite part” Seungcheol comments with a laugh. 

“You haven’t had to deal with a lifetime of forty-minute pizza deliveries,” Joshua says as he walks over from the kitchen. He tucks himself into Seungcheol’s lap on the couch, brings a hand up to rest in Seungcheol’s hair. 

They just look at each other for a minute, matching small smiles, before Joshua leans in and kisses him gently. He just took a shower and he smells like soap and cologne, clean. Seungcheol realizes very suddenly that he’s really going to miss this. He puts his hands on Joshua’s waist and Joshua smiles into the kiss. 

They’re distracted enough that the sound of the delivery person pressing Joshua’s buzzer startles Joshua into jumping, almost falling backward onto the floor.

He laughs, standing up and running a hand through his hair, looking a little embarrassed. “I’ll, uh. Get that.” 

Seungcheol had finally messaged Jeonghan back earlier. A short _L.A. is good_ with no further explanation, which he knew Jeonghan was suspicious of immediately. It’s just that he doesn’t feel like checking back into reality yet, when he’s enjoying this so damn much. He doesn’t feel like fielding questions from Jeonghan about what the hell he’s doing. 

They eat pizza messily with some American sitcom playing in the background, but Seungcheol pays more attention to looking at the rings on Joshua’s fingers and the way his apartment is well-decorated but sparse. The things he hasn’t gone out of his way to catalog in his mind yet. 

He likes the parallel of ending up in Joshua’s bed again that night, the two of them moving sweet and slow instead of the rush they were in a few days ago. They’re more purposeful now that they know a little more about each other; Joshua knows the spot on Seungcheol’s neck that he likes to be kissed, Seungcheol knows to run his hands across Joshua’s chest to make him shiver. 

“You’re so beautiful,” Seungcheol breathes, looking down at the way Joshua’s already arched underneath him, hard in his briefs from the way they’ve been kissing for half an hour. 

“You are too,” Joshua says back with half a grin, bringing a hand up to run through Seungcheol’s hair. 

They look at each other, breathing still a little ragged, and Seungcheol can’t help himself from saying, “I like you a lot.” 

Joshua nods, thumb stroking down Seungcheol’s cheek. “I like you a lot back.” 

Seungcheol doesn’t know what else to say, can’t think of anything that doesn’t feel too heavy and too honest. But Joshua keeps nodding, like he can see Seungcheol’s thoughts racing. “I know,” he mutters. Seungcheol isn’t sure what exactly he knows, whether or not he’s acknowledging that same heavy feeling in Seungcheol’s chest, but it’s kind and soothing, like most of Joshua’s words are, and Seungcheol nods back. 

He leans down, kissing Joshua again, enjoying the way that Joshua’s arms wrap around him and his fingertips dig into Seungcheol’s back. 

They take it all so slow, so careful, neither of them willing to stop kissing for very long. Out of the moment it would maybe seem embarrassingly sweet, too tender, but it feels good in the here and now. His thoughts are a mess as he thrusts slowly into Joshua, looking down at the way Joshua’s eyes close prettily. A mess of compliments that he’s biting back and feelings he doesn’t want to unpack like this, in bed the night before he leaves. 

When they’ve both finished and cleaned up, wiped each other off in the bathroom and kissed a little for good measure, they lie tangled up in Joshua’s bed, both of them breathing slow but neither of them asleep. Joshua’s chest is pressed to his back, his arms around his middle, and Seungcheol’s playing with the fingers on one of his hands absentmindedly. 

“Is this stupid?” Joshua asks quietly, breath warm against Seungcheol’s neck.

Seungcheol doesn’t need to ask what he means, but he also doesn’t need to think about it for too long. “No, it’s not.” He feels sure of that, anyway.

“I don’t usually do...things like this.” 

“What exactly is the kind of thing we’re doing here?” Seungcheol asks with a soft laugh. 

Joshua pauses then laughs back. “I don’t know. I guess that’s the point. I don’t do things I’m not sure of.”

“I don’t either,” Seungcheol says quietly.

Joshua hums, leaning his face against Seungcheol’s back and nuzzling his nose into Seungcheol’s skin. 

“Maybe we should both try, then,” Joshua decides after a moment. 

“Yeah,” Seungcheol agrees. “Maybe we should.”

++

The last thing Joshua says to him before he leaves the airport the next morning is a soft, “Talk to you soon,” as he leans in to kiss Seungcheol softly.

And all Seungcheol can do is hope that he’s right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> non-svt idols: amber from f(x), amy lee (ailee), johnny from nct, kyla and shannon (sungyeon) from pristin.
> 
> i wanted to post this chapter quick so this wasn't just a short smut fic (lol) but the next one will be in a few days.


	3. but we're the greatest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The next couple weeks go like this: Seungcheol misses Joshua, and he doesn’t know what to do about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> top notes: well folks this is a Big One. just how things shook out i suppose but this chapter is a big ol boy. also pls welcome the rest of svt to the party. enjoy!
> 
> (title chapter from "the louvre" by lorde)

Being in Seoul again is weird. Nice, but weird. His thirteen hours in the air did little to right him again, to make him stop feeling so off-kilter since Joshua kissed him goodbye in the airport. 

He missed understanding signs, the sense of familiarity that comes from being somewhere you know. He’s glad for those things. He’s also glad for eating tteokbokki at a pojangmacha with Jeonghan and Soonyoung, even if he would have rather gone straight home from the airport. They have varied reactions when he tells them that he spent the past week with Joshua. 

Soonyoung laughs easily, leaning forward on the table with his wide grin. “That’s crazy. It’s like out of a movie or something. Was he cute?”

Seungcheol laughs along with him, shows him the picture of Joshua on the hiking trail and smiles when Soonyoung makes an impressed noise. 

“Your life is cool, hyung,” Soonyoung says, taking the last sip of his beer.

Jeonghan stays strangely quiet, giving Seuncheol a searching look that he resents. Jeonghan has always been stupidly good at reading him, and it’s _annoying_. When Soonyoung walks off to get another drink, Jeonghan taps his fingers against the table. 

“What?” Seungcheol asks. He takes a drink of the soju sitting in front of him, a choice that isn’t exactly responsible, but whatever. He’s jetlagged, tired, and a little out of it. A drink won’t kill him. 

Jeonghan just looks at him. “You like him.” 

Seungcheol rolls his eyes. “Yes. I like him.” 

Jeonghan nods, resting his chin in his hand. “Interesting.” 

“Cut the therapist shit with me, Jeonghan-ah,” Seungcheol grumbles, looking down at the food on the table. 

“Alright, fine. What are you doing?” Jeonghan asks easily, like it’s not the question Seungcheol has been asking himself for about twenty-four straight hours. 

“I don’t know. I like him and he visits Seoul sometimes and I visit L.A. sometimes. That’s all I know,” Seungcheol says. He looks up at Jeonghan with an eyebrow raised, like it’s a challenge. 

Jeonghan sighs, reaches out to straighten the ring that’s gone crooked on Seungcheol’s finger. “I’m not attacking you, Cheol-ah. I think you should do what makes you happy. I just don’t want you to get hurt. This isn’t like you, that’s all.” 

“I know it’s not,” Seungcheol agrees. “But, I don’t know. Doing things like me hasn’t done a ton of things for me, romantically speaking.” 

Jeonghan hums, takes a moment to think about that, before he looks back at Seungcheol. “Okay.”

It’s acceptance, Seungcheol knows. It’s Jeonghan saying that he gets it. It might even be Jeonghan remembering when he started out with Soonyoung, remembering Seungcheol giving him the same type of lecture about things that aren’t like himself. And it worked out pretty damn well for Jeonghan, Seungcheol thinks.

Seungcheol watches Soonyoung come back, put another beer down in front of him and lean heavily against Jeonghan’s side. “What’d I miss? You two are all serious now.” 

Jeonghan shakes his head. “Nothing,” he says, smiles at Soonyoung easily. They’re sweet together now, but they started as an unbelievable mess of feelings, something that Jeonghan, historically, wasn’t the best with. Still, they made it work. It’s hopeful, watching Soonyoung scrunch his nose at Jeonghan and slip a hand onto his knee under the table, and maybe makes him worry a little less about what exactly he’s doing. 

 

It’s eight by the time he gets home, suitcase retrieved from Jeonghan’s trunk, and it only takes another half-hour for Mingyu and Jihoon to arrive at his door with his dog. She tugs out of Jihoon’s grip as soon as Seungcheol opens the door, opting instead to rush at Seungcheol and nearly tackle him. 

“Hello, Gongju-yah,” he coos at her, smiling as he pets her fur. He looks up to see Jihoon looking unimpressed and Mingyu grinning.

“Hi, hyung,” Mingyu says happily, leaning in to hug Seungcheol after Gongju decides she needs to re-familiarize herself with her house and runs off. Jihoon sets down the bag with all of Gongju’s stuff in it and follows suit, his fake annoyance gone when he pulls back from Seungcheol.

“Did you just get back?” Jihoon asks, glancing at his suitcase. 

Seungcheol nods, glances at the way Mingyu has promptly plopped himself down on the floor and called the dog over with a smile. “It isn’t that late and I figured you’d rather drop her off tonight than keep her until tomorrow.” 

Mingyu snorts. “Is that what he’s been telling you?”

Jihoon has always watched Gongju when Seungcheol went out of town, because he works from home most of the time and his apartment is big enough to fit her. This is the first time since Mingyu moved in, and Mingyu was thrilled about it. 

Now he glances back at Jihoon and Seungcheol with an amused expression. “He loves her. He lets her sleep in the bed.” 

Seungcheol turns to Jihoon, trying to hide his delighted smirk, and finds Jihoon looking vaguely embarrassed. 

“I — she’s grown on me,” Jihoon says airily, crossing his arms in front of him. 

“Good to know,” Seungcheol comments with a smirk and raised eyebrows. Mingyu is lying on the floor laughing at the dog, and it’s funny watching Jihoon try to ignore both Seungcheol’s gloating and Mingyu’s antics. 

They don’t stay long, Mingyu mentioning movie tickets, and Seungcheol waves goodbye when they go, watching Mingyu tuck Jihoon into his side neatly as they walk down the hallway. 

“We should get a puppy, hyung,” Mingyu says just within earshot of Seungcheol.

Jihoon snorts. “You are a puppy.” 

Mingyu makes a noise that’s either pouting or cooing, Seungcheol isn’t sure which as he closes his apartment door. 

If he’s being honest, it feels a little empty in his apartment. Gongju helps, and he pats his bed to get her to jump up and lie down next to him when he finally manages to get ready for bed. She’s warm and comforting, but she takes up more of the bed than she really has any right to (she’s not a small dog, but she shouldn’t be able to almost kick Seungcheol off the bed some nights) and she smells kind of bad right now.

Seungcheol sighs and grabs his phone from the side of his bed, opening the messaging app and staring at Joshua’s recently added contact. He doesn’t really know what to say, what the etiquette is for messaging a man you spent the last sixty hours straight with but who you won’t see again for god knows how long. 

In the end, he sends a picture of himself lying next to Gongju and the message “home safe & sound,” and puts his phone face-down on his bedside table before he can start thinking too much of it. It’s early morning in California anyway. 

“Gongju,” Seungcheol mutters quietly, scratching the dog behind her ear. “I’m out of my depth.”

Gongju just sniffs a couple times before snorting, and Seungcheol sighs. “Yeah, me too.”

++

The next couple weeks go like this: Seungcheol goes back to work, and back to his life. He walks his dog every day and gets dinner with his friends sometimes, and at least once a day he talks to Joshua.

It’s small things. Nothing Earth-shattering. Pictures shared back and forth (that’s easiest, most of the time), small messages, a complaint about their day. Small things. The next couple weeks go like this: Seungcheol misses Joshua, and he doesn’t know what to do about it. 

It’s mostly unspoken. Neither of them say anything about it, all their conversations are absurdly casual. And because it’s still nice to talk to him, to see Joshua posing while he sips a drink, or a picture of a palm tree, Seungcheol only lets it hurt a little, tiny bit. 

It’s three weeks after Seungcheol goes back home, back to his life, that he wakes up with a voicemail. The notification alone puts him on edge a little — no one leaves a voicemail unless someone died. Did someone die? He unlocks his phone blearily, pressing the button to get to his voicemail. 

The sun is just barely coming through the windows, Gongju snoring lightly next to him. It’s Saturday, he remembers suddenly as he puts in his voicemail password, too early for him to really be awake yet.

There’s static on the other line, then a soft, “How are you? Hm. I don’t know why I called you, but…” Joshua’s voice is unmistakable, and he sounds soft and a little hesitant as he trails off. “I miss you. That’s so dumb, but I miss you. When we see each other again —” 

There’s a static-type noise at the other end, and then it cuts off, his voicemail asking if he wants to replay the message. (And he does, maybe a couple more times than he really should.) 

Seungcheol’s chest feels heavy as he lays in bed, playing Joshua’s voice on repeat. He presses the return call button before he really has a chance to think about it, not bothering to check what time it is in L.A. 

Joshua answers on the fourth ring, a polite-sounding, “Hello?”

“Shua,” Seungcheol mutters sleepily. He forgot that he hadn’t actually used his voice yet, and it comes out rough without him meaning to. 

Joshua doesn’t respond for a minute, but then there’s a little laugh on the other end. “Shua?”

“Sorry,” Seungcheol says quietly, rubbing his eyes. “I just woke up, I didn’t mean to —” 

“No,” Joshua cuts him off. “I like it.” 

There’s quiet, the sound of a door closing, and then Joshua asks, “What’s up?” 

Seungcheol blinks, still feeling a little bleary around the edges as he wakes up. “You called me yesterday. Well, overnight, for me.” The way Joshua hasn’t acknowledged it makes Seungcheol it was part of a dream he had, which isn’t very far-fetched.

Joshua pauses again. “Oh,” he says quietly, and then gives an embarrassed laugh. “I wasn’t sure if — sorry.” 

“For what?”

“It’s embarrassing, but I was maybe a little drunk,” Joshua admits. Seungcheol can imagine the pink in his cheeks at the words.

“That’s okay. It was still a nice message,” Seungcheol tells him with a smile. Is it self-centered that he likes the fact that he was on Joshua’s mind? Maybe a little bit, but he feels okay about it. It’s nice.

“Yeah?” Joshua asks, sounding amused, but there’s still some embarrassment around the edges. 

“Yeah. You got cut off, though. You said “when we see each other again” and then nothing.” 

“Oh. Right. Uh, I found out yesterday that I’m coming to Seoul next month.” 

Seungcheol sits up in bed, startling Gongju into glaring at him. “Really?”

“Yeah. Just for a week or so, to consult with your marketing department.”

“Why didn’t you tell me yesterday?” Seungcheol asks, heart beating heavy in his chest as he asks.

Joshua pauses, sighing a little, and it makes Seungcheol nervous. “I wasn’t sure if...I don’t know. I didn’t want you to feel obligated to see me.” 

“Shua,” Seungcheol starts, voice soft. “I would really love to see you.” 

Joshua hums, like he did on the message the night before. “I want to see you, too.” 

“Why make it complicated, then?” Seungcheol asks with half a laugh. 

“I’m good at it,” Joshua answers, laughing back, self-deprecating. 

Seungcheol nods. He rolls over in bed, scratching a hand into Gongju’s fur. “Me too. I’m trying, though. I’m trying to be one of those people in movies, who’s cool about things.” 

“We should talk about things, Seungcheol,” Joshua tells him. “Not in a bad way. Just...we didn’t talk much about this, when you left.” 

“We didn’t. You wanna wait til you’re here?” Seungcheol asks. The conversation doesn’t make him nervous like maybe it would with someone else, because he understands. He understands the need for clarity, for things to be transparent. They’ve spent three weeks in murky water, and as much as he’s been trying, it’s been a little off-putting to not know where he’s standing. It’s sort of a relief to hear Joshua feel the same way.

“Yeah, that sounds good.”

“You can stay with me, if you want,” Seungcheol offers. “Or not, if you’d rather —” 

“No, that’d be nice. I’ll tell my boss not to make hotel reservations.” 

“Okay,” Seungcheol says with a smile. 

“I have to go, I’m still at work,” Joshua says after a moment. He pauses, then in a quieter voice, says, “I’m excited to see you.”

The words buzz around Seungcheol’s mind for a moment, and for nearly a week after he hangs up from the phone call.

++

“I fucking _missed_ you,” Joshua breathes, centimeters away from Seungcheol’s lips. They’re backed messily against the inside of Seungcheol’s front door, Joshua’s suitcase on the floor where he dropped it the moment the door shut on them.

They hugged when they saw each other in the airport, and Seungcheol had trouble keeping himself from staring at Joshua for the entire cab ride from Incheon to Seoul. His face was prettier than Seungcheol could even keep up in his mind, and it seemed remarkable to be this close to it. Joshua had a hand on Seungcheol’s knee, a half-smile on his lips the entire time that Seungcheol made small talk with the cab driver without turning to face him. 

And now here they are, the tension between them finally relieved behind a closed door. Joshua’s still in his clothes from the plane, joggers and a loose t-shirt that are both more casual than what Seungcheol’s seen him wear before. There’s something endearing about that, and about the way Joshua’s fingers are digging into Seungcheol’s own shirt a little desperately.

“I missed you too,” Seungcheol mutters, kissing him like he means it. 

It’s only five in the afternoon, but Seungcheol finds himself undressed on his couch having hasty sex for the first time in a long time. There’s so much urgency between them, despite the fact that they have a week ahead of them before Joshua’s return flight. Joshua keeps whispering “I missed this,” against Seungcheol’s skin, and it makes Seungcheol want. Want everything, all the time. It’s dangerous. He grips Joshua’s back tight, like he’s trying to give Joshua something to remember his touch by as he leans down over Seungcheol’s body.

When Joshua walks back into the living room an hour later, he looks a little more fresh, dressed in clothes that seem more familiar to Seungcheol, more neat and put-together, trailed by an excited-looking Gongju who keeps sniffing at his feet and legs. 

“I scared her when I went in your room, but I think she likes me now,” Joshua says with a grin, settling himself down on the couch next to Seungcheol easily, like it’s something he’s always been doing. Seungcheol likes the way he sits, tucked in on himself neatly. 

“She likes everybody,” Seungcheol says happily. He reaches down to pet her head between her ears.

“Doesn’t Gongju mean princess?” Joshua asks, sounding curious. When Seungcheol nods, he snorts a little. “Any reasoning behind the name?”

“I didn’t give it to her. I got her from a shelter when she was still little, but she already knew her name.”

Joshua’s smiling at him, and Seungcheol looks over with an eyebrow raised. “What?”

“Nothing, just. Of _course_ you’re a rescue dog guy,” Joshua says through a laugh. 

“Is that a thing?” Seungcheol asks, brow furrowed. 

Joshua hums. “Maybe it’s more of a type in L.A.” 

“What type is this, exactly?” Seungcheol feels vaguely defensive, but then Joshua scoots his way over and straddles Seungcheol’s lap, running his hands through his hair. 

“You know, just stupidly sweet and good-natured. A big heart.” He says all that quietly, leans down to kiss Seungcheol’s cheek, which feels warm from how flustered he is. 

There’s a heavy kind of atmosphere between them, tender and affectionate and probably too familiar, and Seungcheol’s floundering for something to say that isn’t too much. But Joshua saves him, backing up and letting his warm grin slip into something more like a smirk when he says, “You probably buy organic groceries, right?”

“Well,” Seungcheol mumbles, “When I see them, sometimes.” 

Joshua laughs, and Seungcheol forgot how much he loves it, the way it sounds a little too big for Joshua’s body.

“You up for going out to get dinner?” Seungcheol asks, hands resting on the tops of Joshua’s thighs. He’s suddenly realized that he’s hungry, and he has no idea the last time Joshua ate. 

“What if we got delivery instead?” Joshua asks, and Seungcheol grins.

“Yeah, let’s do that.” 

It almost doesn’t feel real, to laze around his apartment with Joshua, the dog looking up at both of them expectantly while they eat chicken on the couch and talk with their mouths full. Joshua tells stories from the airport and the plane and Seungcheol has trouble not smiling at him, their feet touching in the middle of the couch. He could really, really get used to this, and that same sense of danger flares up in the back of his mind. 

There’s a lull in the conversation, and Seungcheol looks up at Joshua, who’s wiping sauce off his fingers before petting Gongju sweetly. “We still need to talk, I guess.” 

Joshua doesn’t make any indication that he heard, except for a slight nod. “Yeah, we do.” 

There’s a beat of silence, and then Joshua sighs. “The hard part is the in-between part.” 

Seungcheol nods, giving Joshua room to go on. 

Joshua laughs a little, maybe at himself judging from his pink cheeks. “When we’re together, everything is so, so easy, and I don’t have to doubt for a second what we are.” 

Seungcheol moves on the couch, moves so he’s leaning back against Joshua’s chest instead of sitting opposite him. “What are we?” He asks carefully.

Joshua brings a hand up to run through Seungcheol’s hair. “We’re something really good. Right?”

Seungcheol nods. “Really good.” He looks up at Joshua’s face, the way his lips are upturned in the beginning of a smile but his eyebrows are giving his face a sad tilt. “So what are we going to do about the in-between?”

“Maybe we just...take it easy,” Joshua suggests, looking conflicted even as the words leave his mouth. 

Seungcheol hums, waiting for an explanation, but it doesn’t come. “Take it easy how?”

Joshua sighs again, a small noise, and finally slides off of Seungcheol’s lap to sit next to him. “We live across the world from each other. That’s just a fact, right?” It’s a rhetorical question, and Seungcheol doesn’t have to wait long for him to continue. “So it scares me to...put roots deep down in this. You know?”

Seungcheol nods. “Yeah, I know.” 

“But when I’m here, or you’re in L.A...we could still do this. And then in-between, we can just be...” Joshua trails off like he’s looking for a word.

“Friends?” Seungcheol guesses.

“Maybe something a little stronger than that,” Joshua replies with a smile. “Is it bad that I just want this not to hurt?”

The thing is, Seungcheol thinks it might be futile. They’ve barely spent any time together and they’re already having a discussion about their relationship. Seungcheol thinks that no matter what they do in the spaces between seeing each other, it’s going to hurt. But he doesn’t say any of that, because he thinks Joshua already knows, and because he agrees with Joshua anyway. 

“It’s not bad,” Seungcheol says finally. “It scares me too.” 

It’s kind of a sober admission from both of them, and they sit there quietly for a moment. Seungcheol reaches for Joshua’s hand, slender in his own, and lets them just be quiet. They sit there stewing in the weight of the moment until Gongju jumps up from the floor and curls up in her usual spot, her head resting in Joshua’s lap, and it makes Seungcheol smile. 

“We have a week,” Seungcheol reminds Joshua. “Let’s make it a good one. I owe you, remember?” 

Joshua smiles then, too, gripping Seungcheol’s hand a little tighter. “Right, of course.” 

Joshua’s right, things between them are so damn easy. It’s easy to tip Joshua’s jaw up and kiss him then, distract them both from the things that are still complicated. It’s easy to spend the rest of the night pretending no one in the world exists, smiling at each other and watching stupid television programs until Joshua says he’s sleepy and Seungcheol realizes he is, too. 

Seungcheol ignores the way his heart flutters nervously when he sees Joshua in his own clothes, pajamas borrowed after Joshua realized he didn’t pack any; he ignores the way his clothes hang on Joshua’s small frame, and pretends he’s not affected when he sleepily climbs into Seungcheol’s bed. 

The moment Seungcheol gives up on pretending is when Gongju jumps up too, and finding her usual spot taken, lies down next to Joshua instead. Joshua lets out a tired giggle, and Seungcheol can feel himself go pink, overwhelmed, as he rests his forehead against the back of Joshua’s neck. If he was someone different, there would be a voice telling him to get out of this while he can. 

But he’s himself, and Seungcheol knows that he’s already past the point of no return.

++

They’re both still in their work clothes when they go out to dinner the next night. There was something oddly domestic about getting ready together, commuting to work together on a Monday morning, and it was strange but not uncomfortable. It’s nice to see someone go from sleep-worn to put-together; it’s been a while since he’s done that. Maybe since Minhyun a couple years ago, something that doesn’t really make him sad but is odd to think about.

And they were all set to commute home together, too, but just as they left work, Seungcheol gets seven angry texts from Jeonghan in a row.

_your boy is here and u didn’t even tell me??????_  
_i had to find out from soonyoung who found out from jun who found out from wonwoo_  
_you’re supposed to be my FRIEND_  
_is it because you didn’t want me to judge you_  
_too late i’m judging u. i always am_  
_come to dinner with me and soonie_  
_double date!! with my ex-best friend and the american_

Seungcheol gets them all in rapid succession, and he goes from rolling his eyes to groaning as they keep coming. Joshua is looking at him, curious and amused, as Seungcheol stares down at his phone. 

“Something wrong?” Joshua asks, corner of his lips upturned. He looks nice in his slacks and button-up, his hair styled neatly.

Seungcheol sighs. “Please say no if you don’t want to, but my friend wants to...double date?” 

Joshua laughs. “Really?”

“He’s such a pain in the ass,” Seungcheol grumbles. “I mean, he’s my best friend, but he’s the worst.” 

“Mm,” Joshua murmurs, sounding amused. “Sure. Let’s do it.” 

“You don’t have to,” Seungcheol assures him. “Like, we could just go home and eat leftovers, or —” 

“Seungcheol,” Joshua cuts him off easily with a smile. “Calm down. I want to meet your best friend, even if he is the worst. Also, you still owe me some hospitality. I didn’t keep you cooped up in my apartment all week, I expect the same treatment.” 

He’s leaning into Seungcheol’s side as they stand near the street corner, and Seungcheol has trouble not smiling back at him, nodding easily. “Okay.” 

So they show up to the restaurant like that, still in slightly uncomfortable clothes that feel a little out of place at the trendy little Japanese place Jeonghan likes to drag people to. 

Seungcheol hates introducing Jeonghan to people he’s seeing. It’s always a nightmare for one reason or another, most of the reasons engineered by Jeonghan personally. This time, the night starts out with Jeonghan smiling like the damn Cheshire cat when he catches sight of them outside, and saying, “Oh, so you’re the boy.” 

Seungcheol glares at Jeonghan immediately, and Soonyoung rolls his eyes. Joshua, to his credit, laughs a little. “I guess I am,” he replies with a smile that just about matches Jeonghan’s. “You must be the best friend.” 

“That’s what he says, anyway,” Jeonghan mutters, waving his hand. 

“Jeonghan, Soonyoung, Joshua,” Seungcheol says, pointing between the three of them.

“Good to meet you,” Soonyoung says sweetly, extending his hand to shake Joshua’s, who says the same in return before going to shake Jeonghan’s. 

“Come on, we’ve been waiting for _ages_ ,” Jeonghan whines, pulling Seungcheol by the arm toward the restaurant. 

“No one told you to pick a place across town,” Seungcheol says back with a snort, but he leans in and hugs Jeonghan in greeting, kissing his cheek. 

Seungcheol keeps waiting for the awful shoe to drop, like it always does when Jeonghan insists on meeting the men he dates, but as they sit down and order, he realizes that things are going eerily well. Jeonghan is going through his usual interrogation routine, shooting questions at Joshua while Seungcheol and Soonyoung share an eye-roll (Soonyoung’s more amused than Seungcheol’s), but the weird part is that Jeonghan seems to like Joshua’s answers. He even laughs once at a joke Joshua makes, which doesn’t line up with his typical pouting and snarking at new people. 

By the time their food comes, Seungcheol realizes that they’re _getting along,_ and he’s a little stunned. For all the shit they give each other, Jeonghan actually is a great guy, but he’s always so determined to be a brat to anyone Seungcheol sees. Joshua doesn’t seem to be playing into it though, laughing and joking instead, and Seungcheol feels fond watching Joshua be charming. 

“You should come out with us tomorrow,” Soonyoung says to Seungcheol while they’re eating. “Both of you,” he clarifies, pointing between him and Joshua with a chopstick. 

“What am I being invited to?” Joshua asks with a smile, leaning into Seungcheol to hear better. 

“A family outing,” Jeonghan replies airily. “You should come, Cheol-ah. You haven’t come to anything in forever. The kids will forget your face.” 

Seungcheol does feel a little guilty at that. He doesn’t have an excuse for missing Chan’s last invitation to come over for dinner with everyone except that he was very tired from work, which is a lame excuse. “You’re right. You mind going out tomorrow night?” He aims the last part at Joshua, who’s looking on with interest. 

“That’s your job, right? Show me the town,” Joshua says. He’s still smiling in a disarming kind of way, and Seungcheol can’t do much besides nod and hope he doesn’t look too dopey staring at him. 

“Getting drunk on a Thursday night does sound like the true Seoul experience,” Jeonghan drawls, and Seungcheol snorts.

“Maybe yours.” 

“Don’t judge our lifestyle, hyung,” Soonyoung says with a smirk.

Joshua’s laughing, leaning into Seungcheol as he does, and Seungcheol tries not to put too much weight on how warm it makes him feel.

 

“You know,” Jeonghan mutters to Seungcheol, turning his back to where Joshua and Soonyoung are chatting happily. They’re standing outside the restaurant, bellies full, saying goodbyes. “I like this one.”

Seungcheol raises his eyebrows. “You like this one.”

Jeonghan rolls his shoulders, looking off to the side and looking a little haughty. “Yeah. I like him. Don’t fuck it up.” 

“Why would you assume _I_ would be the one to fuck it up?” Seungcheol asks with a scoff, crossing his arms. 

Jeonghan clicks his tongue and reaches over to slap at Seungcheol’s chest, making him yelp a little. “I’m just saying.”

“Why do you always _do_ that?” Seungcheol whines, bringing a hand up to rub at the place Jeonghan smacked, and it makes Jeonghan cackle before he turns to Soonyoung and laces their fingers together. 

“Nice to meet you, Shua-yah,” Jeonghan says with only a little bit of a smirk, and Joshua laughs. 

“You too,” he says with a nod, waving before drifting back over to Seungcheol. “Shua-yah,” he repeats quietly to Seungcheol, sounding amused.

Seungcheol rolls his eyes. “If it annoys you, don’t show it, he’ll only call you it more.” 

“I like it,” Joshua tells him with a grin. “It’s cute. It’s cuter when you do it, though.”

“If you think it’s cute, then it fits,” Seungcheol says, and Joshua wrinkles his nose up. 

“Cheesy.” 

Seungcheol just smiles at him as they walk down the street toward their subway stop.

++

“What does your tattoo say?” Seungcheol asks him that night when they’re lying in bed. The dog is already snoring, a backing track that Seungcheol is used to. He trails a hand down Joshua’s side, fingers curling over the black ink, and Joshua leans into the touch. He’s wearing a pair of Seungcheol’s pajama pants that he borrowed when they came home, but opted against a shirt, and the writing’s been catching Seungcheol’s eye.

They’ve been lying here for a while, kissing lazily between conversation, both of them sleepy. Joshua looks beat; he admitted on the train home that the jetlag was catching up with him, and Seungcheol can tell. Still though, he blinks his eyes open fully to look at Seungcheol. 

“Let all that you do be done in love,” Joshua recites softly in English. “It’s a bible verse.”

Seungcheol hums with a nod. “It’s pretty.” 

“Thanks,” Joshua chuckles. “I got it after I came out to my family. Felt very passionate about the whole —” (A yawn punctuates his sentence) “Gay Christian thing.” 

“Did they not take it well?” Seungcheol asks quietly. 

“No, they were great. Other people weren’t so great,” he says with a shrug. “It was a long time ago, though.”

It’s quiet again, Seungcheol arranging himself to cuddle closer to Joshua, who brings a hand up to stroke through his hair. 

“I have a question for you,” Joshua offers. 

“Hm?”

“You and Jeonghan. You used to date, right?” 

“Very briefly, a very long time ago,” Seungcheol says, a little surprised. “Is it that obvious?”

“He’s very protective of you,” Joshua says. Seungcheol can feel his little laughs in his chest. “I’m not jealous or anything, I was just curious.” 

“We had a very ill-advised thing in college for a second and immediately agreed to stop having it,” Seungcheol explains with a smile. 

“Ah, one of those,” Joshua replies, amused.

“One of those,” Seungcheol agrees. “He never really got his shit together until Soonyoung.” 

“They’re cute together,” Joshua murmurs. “The people we’re going out with tomorrow, do you know them all from school?”

“Some of them. The ones I didn’t go to school with I met through the ones I did. They’re a good group, but they’re a mess.” 

Joshua laughs again, leans in to kiss Seungcheol’s cheek. “Sounds fun.” 

They fall asleep wrapped around each other, and everything about it feels domestic, and Seungcheol has to remind himself that nothing about it is permanent.

++

They’re late. Part of it is that Joshua ended up working late, stuck in meetings until an hour after Seungcheol got home (making use of the spare key Seungcheol gave him the day before), but the other part of it is that when Joshua pulled on a tight pair of jeans and a smooth button-up shirt that sits loose on him, it slows things down.

“You brought this with you to Seoul?” Seungcheol asks, having trouble convincing himself to stop looking him over. Even buttoned all the way, the shirt shows the beginning of his collarbones, the delicate frame of his shoulders.

Joshua snorts. “I’ve been to Itaewon before. It’s good to pack just-in-case outfits.” 

Seungcheol’s brain lingers on that, on the idea of Joshua dressed like this in the kind of clubs they’re going to tonight. “What’s this one in case of?”

“Well, usually it’s in case I want to pick someone up,” Joshua says with a smirk, walking over to Seungcheol in a way that seems dangerous. “This time it was in case I wanted to see you stare at me like that.” 

So they end up late, both a little more disheveled than planned, because apparently making out for half an hour like teenagers will do that to you. They’re not the last ones there, because no one in the history of time has ever been later than Hansol and Seungkwan to any event, but they’re close. They start out at a quieter bar, and when Seungcheol and Joshua get there, there are ten expectant faces looking at them from the biggest group table.

“Oh, gosh,” Joshua mutters. Seungcheol is painfully endeared.

“Sorry, did I forget to mention that there’s an entire million of us?” Seungcheol replies with a wince, and Joshua laughs at him.

“Everyone,” Seungcheol calls out to the table in front of them. “This is Joshua. Don’t be weird.” 

Wonwoo snorts back at them. “Pointless direction.”

Seungcheol sighs. “I know. Joshua, everyone.” They all wave, Jeonghan smirking while he does so, and Seungcheol rolls his eyes.

Introductions are a little cumbersome, like they always are with this many people, but everything seems to be going well. Joshua is personable, and there’s enough of them that conversation is always easy, even with new people. 

It’s another half an hour before Seungkwan and Hansol show up, holding hands but bickering as they walk up to everyone. 

“Everyone compliment Seungkwan on his outfit, it took him ten years to put together,” Hansol announces, earning him a hurt noise and a smack on the arm from Seungkwan. Hansol just smiles back at him as he pulls up chairs for the two of them.

“Seungkwannie, aigoo, so handsome,” Seokmin coos from across the table. Seungkwan glares, and Seokmin cackles. 

The next thing that happens is Joshua looks over from where he was talking to Soonyoung, and his face goes slack with surprise.

“Joshua Hong?” Hansol asks from his place at the other end of the table, face similarly shocked. Everyone else looks between them, confused.

“Holy shit,” Joshua says in English, laughing. “No way.” He gets up and walks over to Hansol, wrapping him in an easy hug. “No way!”

“What the hell are you doing here?” Hansol asks in English. 

“Long story,” Joshua says with a smile. “I’m here with Seungcheol?”

“No shit,” Hansol says, laughing.

“What’s happening?” Seungkwan asks, looking between the two of them impatiently. 

“We went to college together,” Hansol explains, switching back to Korean but still staring at Joshua a little mystified. “I haven’t seen you in like five years. Is your Korean better now?”

“It is, actually,” Joshua replies with a grin. 

“You went to college with Choi Hansol?” Seungcheol asks. He knew Hansol went to school in America, but this wasn’t exactly on the forefront of his mind.

“Yeah, I did,” Joshua says. He finally comes back to his seat but he’s still staring at Hansol happily. “Do you keep up with anybody?”

“Not as much as I should,” Hansol says with a shake of his head, looking regretful. “We all got so busy so fast, and moving back to Seoul made it hard. How is everyone? How are Kyla and Shannon?”

“Oh, I met them, they were nice,” Seungcheol says, mostly to himself, and Hansol laughs in a disbelieving kind of way.

“This is fucking insane,” Hansol says. “I need a drink. I need to buy you a drink, man.” 

“College in America sounds fun,” Chan says, finally breaking up everyone’s surprised quiet. His boyfriend, Woojin (Seungcheol thinks that’s his name, anyway — they’ve only met a couple times) nods in agreement.

“It is fun,” Joshua says with a smile. “It’s not really like in the movies, though.”

“It’s a little like in the movies, Josh,” Hansol says with a snort. “I mean, gayer, for us.”

Joshua rolls his eyes good-naturedly. “Please, you were barely even gay when we met.”

“Wow, I can’t imagine a reality where Hansol isn’t this gay,” Jihoon says, resting his chin in his hand. “I need to hear more about this.” 

Hansol looks embarrassed now. “Actually, let’s not reminisce.” 

“No, it’s fun!” Joshua insists brightly, looking pleased at Hansol’s expense. Seungcheol likes this side of him, the side that comes out around his old friends. “Hansol was a _baby_.”

“Yeah, that sounds right,” Jeonghan comments.

“Guys,” Hansol whines. Seungkwan’s snickering at him. 

“He was really cute and really lost, like a puppy,” Joshua says with a smile. “When we first met, I mean. He was literally lost, in the middle of campus, and ended up at this table I was running, handing out flyers for an LGBT club, and then when he took one and realized what it was, he said ‘I’m not gay’ really fast and ran away.”

Seugkwan looks _delighted_ with this information as Hansol gets redder and redder. “Aw, little baby Hansolie,” he coos, tickling under Hansol’s chin. “So dumb.” 

The rest of the table is also laughing, whether at Hansol’s general innocence or the idea of him not being gay Seungcheol isn’t sure. 

“I didn’t know! I was eighteen and on my own for the very first time, how was I supposed to know I liked boys until Josh —” Hansol defends himself, but Minghao cuts him off.

“Wait. _Until_ Josh? Seungcheol’s date was your first gay crush?” Minghao asks, sounding incredibly amused. 

Hansol goes even redder, and Joshua is laughing loudly. “That’s right, I had to give you that whole speech where I tried to let you down easy after that party.” 

“Show of hands, how many people at this table have kissed Joshua?” Jeonghan asks suddenly, like it’s urgent. 

There’s a pause, then Seungcheol raises his hand, and another pause before Hansol lifts his, face buried in his other hand as the table explodes into laughter. 

Seungcheol feels vaguely shell-shocked underneath his amusement. The whole situation is insane, but it is hilarious. 

“Did you sleep together?” Seungkwan asks, wiping a tear from his eye. 

“No,” Joshua and Hansol say together forcefully. “We just made out when we were drunk once. He was cute, but he was a kid.” Joshua elaborates. 

“I’m almost sad,” Jeonghan says. “That would have been good material for a long time.” 

“Too bad, nothing really happened. I just had this really embarrassing crush on him for like a _year_ ,” Hansol says with a snort, apparently leaning into the situation. “He was all older and pretty and always dated the dumbest assholes.”

“All true,” Joshua says with a nod. 

“Did he have the piercing and tattoo yet?” Seungcheol asks, earning him a little glare from Joshua when everyone looks at him with interest.

“Yeah,” Hansol says with a dreamy little sigh.

“Yah,” Seungkwan says in warning.

Hansol gives him a crooked little grin. “Don’t worry, I like you more.” 

“Do we really all still need to hear this? I thought it would end after you got engaged,” Jun says with a snort. 

“You’re _engaged_?” Joshua asks, leaning forward and looking interested.

The next hour goes on like that, everyone ordering drinks and listening to more of Joshua and Hansol’s stories in between telling their own. It’s fun, seeing Joshua with his friends, and sometimes he finds himself grinning at Joshua while he talks. 

“You look happy, hyung,” Mingyu says to him, and Seungcheol feels himself go pink.

“Yeah,” he responds. “I am happy.”

 

 

The night ends up how it always ends up, with Mingyu and Minghao arguing about what club they should go to and trying to convince everyone of their side. Eventually Minghao wins, though, and saves them from Mingyu’s pick (which is louder and a little grimier than Seungcheol feels like dealing with tonight.) 

They’re all a little drunk when they get there, and the first thing they do is drink more at the bar. Seungcheol’s never really seen Joshua drink before, and the smooth way he takes shots is a little impressive. Seungcheol coughs on his and Joshua and Jeonghan laugh at him easily. 

“He’s soft, you know,” Jeonghan says.

Joshua grins at Seungcheol. “Yeah, I know.” 

“Leave me alone,” Seungcheol grumbles weakly, setting down the shot glass. 

Soonyoung steals Jeonghan away to pull him into the mass of people dancing, leaving Seungcheol and Joshua on the bar. Everyone else already migrated over, and they’re a big enough group that they take up a good portion of the dancefloor. It’s a familiar scene for Seungcheol: Jun and Soonyoung are dancing together, on the verge of over-the-top but clearly having fun as Wonwoo and Jeonghan watch them with some amusement, moving slightly to the beat; Mingyu’s dancing is clumsy and Jihoon helps right him, hands on Mingyu’s hips as they find a rhythm; Minghao and Seokmin are somewhere between joking and serious as they dance together, a smirk on Minghao’s lips, and Hansol and Seungkwan are next to them doing sort of the same thing but pressed tight together; Chan’s dancing with his boyfriend, Chan doing most of the work for them, and doing it well.

“Do you dance?” Joshua asks, leaning in close to Seungcheol. He smells like the fruity shots Soonyoung bought, and like his cologne. More importantly, he looks _good_ like this, lips wet from the drink and eyes dark. 

“Not usually,” Seungcheol answers honestly, stepping forward and putting his hands on Joshua’s narrow hips, because he’s a little drunk and it’s hard to resist.

“Yeah, well,” Joshua mutters, smirking. “Dance with me anyway.”

Seungcheol doesn’t even debate saying no, letting Joshua pull him closer to the dancefloor instead. They’re both a little clumsy, laughing as they move, but Joshua’s got a hand on the back of his neck and another on his hip and it’s hard to find that too funny. 

They dance together like that for a few songs, until they get pulled back over to the bar to get more drinks. Hansol offers to buy Joshua a shot but he gets bullied into buying one for Seungcheol and Seungkwan too, making all of them laugh. 

“Come on,” Joshua says after that, leaning in to pull at Seungcheol’s collar. “One more round?”

“One more round,” Seungcheol agrees with an easy smile, putting his card down on the bar to order them another. Hansol and Seungkwan are back on the dancefloor, and now it’s just the two of them again. 

“Cheers,” Joshua tells him when the shots come, grabbing it to clink with Seungcheol’s shot glass. They both down them, Seungcheol finding it easier to swallow now that he’s a few drinks in. 

Joshua’s smiling at him, face a little red from the alcohol, biting his lip. “I wanna dance with you more. I’m gonna go to the bathroom, and then we’re gonna dance more.”

Seungcheol just nods, staring after him helplessly as he trails through the club toward the bathroom sign. 

“You’re being _so_ gross,” Seungcheol hears, and he turns a little to find Jeonghan giving him a look.

“Fuck you,” Seungcheol laughs.

“Oh god, how much have you been drinking?” Jeonghan asks with his own laugh. 

“Enough to tell you,” Seungcheol turns to face him properly, “That fuck you.” 

Jeonghan ignores him, coming over to sit down near where he’s standing. “I think it’s cute,” he says with a smirk. “Even though I am a little scared you two will start going at it in the middle of the room.”

Seungcheol levels him with a glare. “You literally had sex in a club bathroom like two weeks ago.”

Jeonghan rolls his eyes. “It was just a blowjob.”

“Ugh, gross,” Seungcheol complains. 

“It wasn’t the _best_ decision we’ve ever made,” Jeonghan admits reluctantly. 

On cue, Soonyoung appears behind Jeonghan, forehead damp with sweat. “What wasn’t?” He asks, slinging his arms over Jeonghan’s shoulders. He’s slipping down slowly and precariously, and Seungcheol wonders just how much Soonyoung’s had to drink tonight.

“That time in Soho a couple weeks ago,” Jeonghan tells him, tilting his head up against him.

“Oh,” Soonyoung says with a laugh. “Yeah. No, it wasn’t. Fun, though.” 

“Mm,” Jeonghan agrees, looking up at Soonyoung with a grin.

“I’m not gross,” Seungcheol argues with a grimace. “You guys are gross.” 

Their circular conversation (a familiar one, dragged out often, since Jeonghan and Soonyoung are _gross_ ) fades out when Minghao and Seokmin pass by them, holding hands and grinning at each other as they walk toward the door.

“Yah, Seokminnie,” Soonyoung calls. Seokmin looks startled as he spins toward Soonyoung, cheeks going pink. “You leaving?”

Seokmin pauses, looking between him and Minghao, who also looks a little embarrassed, like they got caught. “Yeah, we have to...yeah.” 

Jeonghan’s eyes are narrowed but Soonyoung doesn’t show any suspicion. “Okay, be safe, love you both.”

Minghao groans, apparently shaken out of his embarrassment by annoyance, turning to roll his eyes at Soonyoung. “Stop saying you love me every time I leave a room, hyung.” 

“Love you! I love you, Xu Minghao!” Soonyoung calls louder, laughing when Minghao makes a frustrated noise, pulling Seokmin behind him by the hand toward the door. 

“So,” Jeonghan says, his voice taking on the tone it always does when he gossips. Conspiratory. Vaguely dangerous. “They’re leaving together.” 

“You don’t _know_ that it’s —” Seungcheol starts, but he’s cut off by Soonyoung pointing to their retreating figures, visible through a gap in the crowd. They’re back to smiling at each other, and just before they find the door, Seokmin leans in to pull Minghao into a kiss. Soonyoung lets out an audible gasp, and Seungcheol can’t help the snort of laughter that escapes him at the reaction.

“Well, that’s new,” he mutters. 

“Interesting,” Jeonghan drawls.

“I hope they’re in _love_ ,” Soonyoung says emphatically, lips pouting. “I’m going to text Seokminnie —” 

“Soonyoung, no,” Jeonghan says quickly, reaching out to grab the phone Soonyoung retrieved from his pocket. “Give me your phone, babe. It’s important, I need it.” 

“Why?” Soonyoung asks, furrowing his brows in confusion.

“It’s really important, Soonyoungie,” Jeonghan explains patiently with his hand outstretched.

Seungcheol laughs under his breath, watching them a little fondly, when Joshua comes back into view. His hair’s pushed back from his forehead messily, his shirt untucked now, and Seungcheol thinks he could stare at him forever, possibly, when he looks this good. Joshua smiles as he walks closer and Seungcheol can’t help but smile back, step forward until they meet somewhere in the middle. 

“Hey,” Seungcheol says, voice low, leaning forward until their hips are pressed together, his hands wrapped around to Joshua’s back.

“Hey,” Joshua murmurs back, still smiling. “Sorry, there was a line.” 

Seungcheol laughs. “It’s okay. Do you still want to dance more?” 

“I’d rather go home with you,” Joshua says quietly. There’s still a grin on his face, but it’s more like a smirk now. 

“That sounds good too,” Seungcheol tells him, moving his hands to Joshua’s waist. 

They stay looking at each other, leaned close together with matching smirks, until Jeonghan yells, “Cheol-ah!” and effectively ruins the mood.

Seungcheol closes his eyes for a moment before turning around to face him with a raised eyebrow.

“Yeah, sorry to interrupt you two, but I’m taking him home,” Jeonghan says with a roll of his eyes, gesturing to the Soonyoung piled on his shoulder. He successfully got Soonyoung’s phone away, at least, and now has both of their phones in his right hand as he tries to manhandle Soonyoung into standing. 

“You need any help with that?” Joshua asks with a laugh in his voice. This is probably just the kind human thing to do, but the gesture makes Seungcheol a little weak; Joshua is so _nice_. 

Jeonghan is less impressed, and just snorts. “Please. I have a PhD in wrangling Kwon Soonyoung. Besides, you two seem...busy.” 

The fact that Jeonghan still takes the time to tease them with Soonyoung whining and stumbling next to him strikes Seungcheol as very typical. 

“You _should_ get a PhD,” Soonyoung mutters, leaning so that he’s hugging Jeonghan’s side. “You’re so _smart_.”

“I _do_ have a PhD, dummy,” Jeonghan says to Soonyoung, but it’s softer than his real teasing voice, and there’s an endeared grin on his face.

“Oh, right,” Soonyoung says. “See? So smart.” 

Jeonghan laughs and runs a hand through Soonyoung’s messy hair. “Time to go home, Soonyoungie.” 

“Good luck,” Joshua offers with a smile. He’s standing next to Seungcheol now, a hand around his waist and resting on his hip.

“It’s fine when it’s only one of them. When both of them get drunk, that’s when things really get messy,” Seungcheol says.

“That’s how Soho happened the other week,” Jeonghan says with a grimace. 

“No, stop, go home,” Seungcheol insists louder than Jeonghan’s voice, cutting off the story before it can really go anywhere. “Go!” And that’s why Jeonghan leaves cackling.

As Seungcheol looks around, he realizes their crowd is getting thin. Most of the couples have left, except Seungkwan and Hansol who are talking to Wonwoo and Junhui on the edge of the dance floor. 

“I wanna get out of here,” Joshua says, leaning in close to Seungcheol’s ear. “Let’s go say goodbye.”

Seungcheol lets Joshua drag him by the hand over to them, only to let it go when he exclaims, “Hansol! I’m leaving.” 

Hansol’s face splits into his usual giant grin, and Seungcheol grins along with him, turning to Wonwoo and Jun as Joshua goes through a slightly drunken goodbye routine with Hansol in English. 

“You’re the only ones with the courtesy to say goodbye besides Chan and Woojin,” Junhui says with a smirk. “All the married couples were too thirsty to take the time, I suppose.”

“Hey,” Seungkwan insists, words a little slurred. “We are the _only_ married couple. I didn’t propose to him just to get disrespected like this.” 

“You aren’t even married yet,” Wonwoo says with raised eyebrows.

“We are if I say we are!” Seungkwan says defiantly, crossing his arms. 

Joshua pulls away from hugging Hansol, and Hansol attaches himself to Seungkwan’s back instead, laughing at his pout. 

“It was good meeting you,” Joshua says sweetly to Jun and Seungkwan. “And seeing you again,” he aims at Wonwoo. 

“See you,” Seungcheol offers to all of them, raising a hand to wave goodbye as he tugs at Joshua’s hand toward the exit.

“I haven’t seen hyung so worked up over someone in years,” Jun drawls with a smirk, and Seungcheol takes the time to glare at him before succeeding in pulling Joshua away. 

“Is that so?” Joshua says mostly to himself, it seems like. There’s a smirk on his face too as they hail a cab and sit crowded together close in the backseat, his hand on Seungcheol’s thigh dipping dangerously close to his inseam. 

(And Seungcheol has to admit, Junhui might be right.)

 

They make it to the kitchen before Joshua backs Seungcheol against the wall, kissing him like it’s the only thing he needs to do in the world. Their desperation is palpable, heavy between them, and kissing him feels so _good_. Seungcheol forgot how good kissing feels after a few drinks. 

They carry on for a few minutes, Joshua’s hands bunched in Seungcheol’s shirt, tugging it up, before Joshua pulls away. Seungcheol’s about to say something (he doesn’t know what, but something) when Joshua backs up a little and drops to his knees so fast that it leaves Seungcheol’s head spinning.

“You…” Seungcheol starts, feeling dizzy from the way Joshua’s looking up at him, licking his lips. “You don’t have to.”

“I _want_ to. Ever since you put on these fucking pants I’ve wanted to,” Joshua says, a whine in his voice. He runs his hands up Seungcheol’s thighs, contained by a pair of jeans he maybe should have gotten rid of a pants size ago, but apparently keeping them had a purpose. “You still need to teach me. The word for it. I want to...” Joshua trails off, looking up at Seungcheol expectantly. 

“Do you want the real phrase or the dirty phrase?” Seungcheol asks.

Joshua scoots forward to Seungcheol and cups him through his pants with a smirk at the way Seungcheol flinches. “The dirty one.” 

“Suck me off,” Seungcheol manages, feeling overwhelmed. Joshua nods slightly.

“I want to suck you off,” he repeats slowly, and it doesn’t matter that Seungcheol just taught him how to say it, it’s still hot. “Is that okay?”

Seungcheol isn’t sure if he’s asking about his pronunciation or the act itself, but either way, Seungcheol nods quickly. “It’s very very okay.”

Joshua laughs quietly before he reaches to unbutton Seungcheol’s jeans, pushing them down to Seungcheol’s thighs a little roughly. 

“You’re hot,” Joshua mutters. “Did you know that?” 

“You’ve — mentioned it,” Seungcheol says around a little gasp as Joshua pulls Seungcheol’s underwear down as well.

Joshua doesn’t say anything else before he leans forward and takes the head of Seungcheol’s dick in his mouth, ignoring the choked little noise that Seungcheol makes out of surprise. 

Things go fast. It’s only a few minutes of Joshua on his knees before he’s standing again, pulling Seungcheol into bed, straddling him easily as they kiss breathlessly. 

“I want you to fuck me,” Joshua says when he pulls back, voice barely above a whisper, and the surprise of the words themselves nearly stun Seungcheol.

“Where’d you learn _that_?” Seungcheol asks, hands reaching up to stroke Joshua’s bare sides. 

Joshua just smirks. “I googled it.” 

“Jesus christ,” Seungcheol mutters before he pulls Joshua back down into a kiss, ignoring the way Joshua laughs into it.

++

“This is nice,” Joshua says quietly. They’re sat on their picnic blanket facing the Han River, their empty food containers next to them they watch the river flow, and the people flow by on the walking trail within view. “Very scenic.”

Seungcheol chuckles. “Glad you think so.” 

It’s dark out, getting chilly now that it’s getting closer to Autumn, but they’re both in sweatshirts for the occasion, legs under a spare blanket Seungcheol decided to bring at the last minute. 

After the night before (and the morning after, which was a little sore and not without its regrets as they both trudged into work blearily), Seungcheol thought he should keep it simple tonight, and led Joshua to his favorite Han River park, picnic blanket and all. Jeonghan would call it cute, in a simpering kind of way. Seungcheol thinks it is pretty cute, if he’s being honest.

The good news is that Joshua seems to think so too, leaned half in Seungcheol’s lap as they sit together quietly under their blanket. 

“You’re a good tour guide,” Joshua tells him, leaning onto Seungcheol’s shoulder. “This is the most I’ve ever liked Seoul.”

“Hey,” Seungcheol mutters with a pout. “Seoul is a great place.”

“Yeah,” Joshua agrees. “Seoul is cool. You just make things better.” 

He says it like it’s not a big deal, but it hangs heavy in the air between them for a moment as they both pretend not to read into it.

 

 

“Hansol said you used to date a lot of assholes,” Seungcheol says that night while they’re lying in bed, warm again after their few hours outside. It’s late, but neither of them are really trying to fall asleep. Joshua has a flight in thirty-two hours, and they’re not talking about it really, but it’s maybe why the two of them are trying to stretch out their time.

Joshua hums and then chuckles, moving the arm slung across Seungcheol’s middle to find Seungcheol’s hand and twine their fingers together. “Yeah. I did. Especially in college. Didn’t everyone?” 

They’ve been talking about things like this for hours now, little things, questions for each other without any need to explain why. 

“I’ve dated a few assholes, yeah. Most of my exes are nice, though.” 

“I bet you’re one of those people that stays friends,” Joshua says with a little laugh.

“Well,” Seungcheol says quietly. “Sometimes, yeah. Mostly I just don’t have any hard feelings toward them.” 

“I don’t believe you,” Joshua says with a snort. He pulls back from where he’s spooned against Seungcheol’s back and sits up in bed, Seungcheol following after him. 

“It’s true,” Seungcheol insists. 

“Who was your last ex?” Joshua asks curiously. 

“The last time I really dated anyone seriously was...a couple years ago, I guess,” Seungcheol admits, feeling a little embarrassed about it.

“Okay, tell me about this guy.” Joshua has half a grin on his face, but also a tone like he’s giving a lecture, very purposeful. 

“He was a good guy. We were together for about a year, I guess, when we started to drift apart,” Seungcheol says thoughtfully. It’s weird to think about it this much, more than he has in a long time.

“How come you drifted apart?” Joshua asks.

Seungcheol hums. “I think the normal reasons. We were both too busy, we never had time for each other. He started to have feelings for someone else, too, I think.”

“And you still think he’s a good guy?” Joshua sounds a little surprised, and Seungcheol looks over to see his eyebrow raised.

“Yeah, I do,” Seungcheol says with a sigh. “He seemed really messed up about it. It obviously wasn’t on purpose, it was just...I wasn’t around that much, and this guy was, and things just kind of fell apart between us.” 

Joshua nods, then pauses. “Sorry if you didn’t want to talk about it.” 

“No, it’s fine. It was a long time ago.” Seungcheol gives him a reassuring smile. “But Minhyun was a good guy. I hope he’s doing well.” 

Joshua shakes his head. “You’re so sweet. I can’t believe you’re real.” 

Seungcheol laughs, feels his cheeks go pink. “What?” 

“You’re a golden retriever of a man, Seungcheol,” Joshua tells him with a grin, leaning over to kiss his cheek. “Or maybe whatever Gongju is.” 

Gongju snorts in her sleep on the floor, like maybe she disagrees. 

“Well, that’s…” Seungcheol trails off, feeling bashful. “I try to think the best of people.” 

“I like it,” Joshua says, still grinning. “It’s a really good thing about you.”

He leans over again, catching Seungcheol’s lips in a real kiss this time, and Seungcheol can’t help but kiss him back, feel a little shy when Joshua pulls back to smile at him some more.

“What about your last ex, then?” Seungcheol asks when he gets his bearings back. 

Joshua rolls his eyes. “Ugh. The worst. This software developer guy who cheated on me.” 

“Oh god, I’m sorry,” Seungcheol says with a wince.

“It’s fine, I threw out a bunch of his clothes,” Joshua says with a shrug, earning a surprised laugh from Seungcheol. “You date enough assholes, you learn how to deal with them.” 

“Sorry you had to learn,” Seungcheol says quietly. 

Joshua just shrugs, lips upturned. “It’s okay. Everything happens for a reason, right?”

He settles back down into bed, lying on his back, and Seungcheol moves to lie on his chest without even pausing. 

“Why’d you come up to me, that first night at the bar?” Seungcheol asks quietly. 

“Honestly?” Joshua asks. “Because you looked really good in that suit.”

Seungcheol laughs quietly. “You did too.” 

“I guess it’s not a great story,” Joshua says, running his hand through Seungcheol’s hair.

“Maybe not,” Seungcheol admits. “But everything happens for a reason, right?”

At that, Joshua just scoots down the bed to face Seungcheol and kisses him again, soft and slow. 

“Yeah,” Joshua breathes. “Everything happens for a reason.”

++

They wake up slow the next morning, curled up close to each other and not doing much besides breathing together for some unmeasurable amount of time. Eventually Gongju whines at the door, forcing Seungcheol to blink his eyes open fully and sit up in bed, looking down fondly at the way Joshua hums and moves to curl back into him. 

“Don’t leave,” Joshua says quietly, voice something like a whine. He still hasn’t opened his eyes, hands reaching out blindly to Seungcheol, and it makes something in Seungcheol’s chest ache. 

“Gotta walk the dog,” Seungcheol mutters, reaching out to push Joshua’s hair out of his face. Joshua hums again before tilting his head to kiss the inside of Seungcheol’s wrist. 

“Come back soon, then,” Joshua says, his voice heavy with sleep, before he settles back into bed. 

Seungcheol stays sitting there for a moment, looking down at the soft look on Joshua’s face, before he can convince himself to really get out of bed and get dressed. Even when he does, part of him is still sitting on the bed, heart heavy and scared. It’s the kind of morning that doesn’t feel real, everything bathed in soft light and warmth, and Seungcheol already feels the weight of missing Joshua when he’s gone again. 

When Seungcheol comes back (soon), Joshua is still in bed, lying messily in the sheets and scrolling through his phone. 

“There you are,” Joshua sing-songs quietly, a small smile on his face, and Seungcheol can’t help but to clamber back into bed, cage a laughing Joshua under his arms and smile down at him.

“Here I am,” Seungcheol whispers back with a smile before he leans down and kisses him, heart pounding from the sheer force of how badly he wants to. 

Their smiles fade as Joshua’s hand finds its way to Seungcheol’s hair, as the other one reaches down to ruck up his shirt. 

“Missed you,” Joshua breathes. 

“I was gone for an hour,” Seungcheol says back with half a smile. “I missed you too.” 

Joshua pulls him down by the collar, kissing him hard, and maybe things would have gone further if Gongju didn’t choose that moment to jump on the bed too, sniffing loudly at them. Seungcheol pulls away to laugh into Joshua’s neck, the two of them lying there shaking from it. 

“We should get up, I guess,” Joshua says eventually, smiling as he reaches out to push Seungcheol’s bangs back from his face. Gongju left after she realized they were too busy to pet her, jumped off the bed and trudged back out to the living room.

“Probably. I like staying in bed with you, though,” Seungcheol says, returning Joshua’s grin easily. 

“Me too,” Joshua laughs. When he picks his arm up, his too-big shirt rides up to show his stomach, soft and tan from more days spent at the beach than just that one a couple months ago.

They’re still not talking about it, the plane Joshua has to get on the next morning, but they’re both painfully aware. It puts heaviness in their actions, finality. It’s the reason neither of them want to spend more than five minutes apart, or take their hands off the warm comfort of each other’s skin. Everything feels like a waste of time when they have so little of it. 

“Let’s stay in bed, then,” Seungcheol suggests, leaning back into Joshua’s space, wrapping an arm around his middle.

“Mm,” Joshua hums, running a hand down Seungcheol’s back. “Sure. Come here.”

Seungcheol tilts his head up and Joshua kisses him without any more preamble, soft and warm. When they pull away, there’s something delicate hanging between them, something that makes Seungcheol’s cheeks go pink.

“I really like you, you know,” Joshua breathes, eyes trained on Seungcheol.

“I really like you too, Shua,” Seungcheol replies easily, smiling as Joshua leans in to kiss him. 

They barely get out of bed all day.

++

In October, a month after Joshua leaves, Seungcheol lands in Los Angeles and sees the following sights over his stay: a restaurant that’s too fancy for either him or Joshua, Disneyland, and the backseat of Joshua’s car on a night when they’re both acting like teenagers. There are more, the days are busy, but Seungcheol loses some of the details in the silly rush of affection he gets from being near the pretty tilt of Joshua’s smile. He sees the sleek interior of Joshua’s apartment, the soft sheets of his bed, the desperate look on Joshua’s face the day he picks Seungcheol up from the airport and kisses him right in baggage claim. He sees the marks Joshua leaves on his collarbones, the sleepy reflection of the two of them shaving together in the mornings before work.

 

In December, Joshua is back in Seoul, and their itinerary includes ice skating, eating sweet potatoes sold by street vendors, being dragged along by Seungkwan and Hansol to areas too young and trendy for either of them. They kiss on Seungcheol’s couch, bundle up in their biggest coats to walk Gongju, order delivery and laugh through dinner. Joshua shares his sweaters and uses the extra toothbrush that Seungcheol is starting to think of as exclusively Joshua’s. They spend four days trying to drink each other in, trying not to talk about Joshua’s flight home; Seungcheol spends four days trying not to say I love you.

 

In-between, during the befores and afters that come along with a relationship that happens in pieces, Seungcheol sees the following sights: text messages with sixteen-hour time differences, selfies that make Seungcheol’s stomach flutter foolishly, voice notes that make him ache a little, a bed that feels too empty. He hears them try to avoid talking about missing each other, he hears the staticky sound of Joshua’s laughter over the phone, enough to make him smile from any distance. He sees them both try to pretend they don’t feel a little empty. He sees Jeonghan’s raised eyebrows and Wonwoo’s sympathetic grimace. He sees his best friends, all so in love and endearing, and smiles at them all easily. He tries not to say I love you to a man he shouldn’t say it to — not from this far away, not when they’re not really anything. 

Because that’s the thing. They aren’t really anything. When they’re together, it’s like they’ve never been apart, but when they’re apart, they...take it easy. That’s always been a misnomer — Seungcheol can’t take anything easy, and there’s the same desperate shift to Joshua’s voice when they talk on the phone late at night. But there’s sixteen hours and thousands of miles and their reluctant pride, and none of that is going away anytime soon. 

 

In January, Jeonghan asks him, “Are you happy like this?” Hansol says, “I invited him to the wedding, you know.” In January, Joshua leaves him a voicemail, voice so soft that Seungcheol can barely hear it, and he says, “God, I wish things were different.” In January, Seungcheol tries not to say I love you.

 

In February, Seungcheol leaves Seoul for Hansol and Seungkwan’s wedding.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> non-svt idols: woojin from wanna one, minhyun from nuest/wanna one (who i hope it didn't seem like i was villifying..he seems like a nice boy)
> 
> expect the next chapter in a week or so!


	4. sweet words and fevers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When they get into bed to sleep, Seungcheol tries not to think about how this is the first time he’s felt settled in months, with Joshua’s arms around his back, and how long it’ll be before he feels settled again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gosh i’m so sorry for the delay of this update! i started writing this fic when i thought i would be unemployed for the foreseeable future but that changed and so did my amount of free time. 
> 
> also, uh, sorry in advance for this chapter. title from lorde’s “hard feelings”, so..take that as you will.

Flying next to Soonyoung and Jeonghan was a mistake. He loves them, but he has never spent seventeen hours strapped next to them, and he never wants to do it again.

“I cannot even look at you for a full day,” Seungcheol informs Jeonghan when they finally get off the plane, stretching their legs for the first time in nearly a whole day.

“Oh, grow up,” Jeonghan says, rolling his eyes from behind his glasses. Big talk for someone who would not _shut up_ for fifteen hours, but whatever.

Seungcheol knows why they’re having the wedding in Florida (half of Hansol’s extended family is here, his aunt is offering her oversized beach house for them to stay in, they can get a real marriage certificate, and the distance dissuades the parts of Seungkwan’s family he doesn’t want here), but the crick in his neck is mad about flying for that long. 

There’s something kind of hysterical about the eleven of them (Chan was pleased that Woojin could get the time off work to be his plus one) standing in the middle of baggage claim in Florida, surrounded by tourists in Disney World shirts and cargo shorts. Hansol and Seungkwan aren’t coming till tomorrow, flying with their parents and sisters instead of with the gay motley crew they currently have assembled, bickering sleepily in Korean in an unfamiliar airport. 

Seungcheol and Wonwoo know enough English to lead the pack to the exit, configure everyone’s taxis to the house and even their own. It’s most of their first time in America, and they’re all excited in a way that Seungcheol finds cute, even as tired as he is. He ends up in a cab with Mingyu, Jihoon and Minghao, the three of them remarking about palm trees on their drive. 

It’s strange to be in a different part of America; over the past few years, America has only been Los Angeles for him, once New York, and it’s strange to be here without being here on business, period. 

“Is it similar to California?” Mingyu asks him while they drive.

“The palm trees are,” Seungcheol says with half a grin. 

It takes them an hour and a half to get from the plane to the beach house, and when Seungcheol’s cab pulls up, there are already a handful of them sorting out their luggage by the front gate. The house is insane, sprawling and fancy-looking in the way you only see in American movies, and Seungcheol thinks maybe everyone’s too intimidated to go in. 

But most of Seungcheol’s thoughts fly out of his head embarrassingly when he catches sight of Joshua coming out of the front door of the house, hair shorter and lighter than it was the last time Seungcheol saw him, looking comfortable in a pair of cuffed blue jeans and a loose long-sleeved shirt that Seungcheol has been looking for since Joshua last left Seoul. 

“Hey! You all made it!” Joshua calls happily at the group, flip-flops smacking against the pavement as he walks. He seems to catch sight of Seungcheol last as he opens the gate and helps upright a few suitcases on his path through their group, and he can’t fight the urge to smile as they meet eyes.

“Oh, hello,” Joshua says quieter, wasting no time before he leans in and kisses Seungcheol hard, hard enough that Seungcheol feels the need to wrap his arms around Joshua’s back. There’s never anything quite like this, the two of them kissing for the first time in months, and Seungcheol’s brain is singularly focused on the press of Joshua’s lips, the feeling of them together, the way it hasn’t changed at all. 

“And you called _me_ gross,” Jeonghan says with a snort. Seungcheol only hears him distantly as he and Joshua finally separate, smiling at each other dazedly. 

“Hyung, we live together and we made out on a plane. They haven’t seen each other in months,” Soonyoung tells him. 

“Don’t take his side,” Jeonghan hisses.

Seungcheol doesn’t even take the time to look over at them, giggling in Joshua’s direction instead.

“You’re on your own with your suitcase, Cheol-ah!” Jeonghan calls to him as they all walk toward the house, leaving Seungcheol and Joshua standing on the sidewalk alone in the dusk. 

“How was your flight?” Joshua asks him, leaning in and wrapping his arms around the back of Seungcheol’s neck. 

“Horrible,” Seungcheol mutters quickly before leaning in to kiss Joshua again, no interest in wasting time. His hands are gripping Joshua’s hips insistently, itching to go under his thighs and lift him up, carry him somewhere and press him against a wall. (He doesn’t really have the upper body strength for that, even if he is bulkier than Joshua, but that’s why it’s a fantasy, he supposes.) Instead he settles for pulling them even closer together, for kissing Joshua breathless.

“We shouldn’t do this out here,” Joshua says when they pull back, but there’s a little smile on his face. 

Seungcheol nods but doesn’t pull away from where he’s pressed into Joshua. “You stole my shirt,” he says instead of moving.

“I like this shirt,” is all Joshua says, smirking at him before giving him another series of quick kisses. 

They make their way inside eventually, Joshua dragging his suitcase along for him, and find the others already ordering pizza in the oversized fancy kitchen. 

“Hyung, we’re eating dinner in — how long did they say?” Seokmin calls to Seungcheol and Joshua, turning around and looking at Mingyu for confirmation. 

“An hour,” Mingyu says with a pout.

Seokmin sighs. “An hour.” 

“Thanks,” Seungcheol says with a smile, not bothering to stop as he follows Joshua out of the kitchen.

“I took the best bedroom,” Joshua stage-whispers to him with a smile. 

“Lucky me,” Seungcheol says with a little smirk

They wind up the stairs to the second floor, and Seungcheol barely takes in the sleek, well-decorated interior of the house, too caught up in Joshua. He feels single-minded in a kind of unpleasant way, but he doesn’t try to curtail it, either.

It’s only moments after Seungcheol closes the door that Joshua is rushing into him, all urgency and fast hands. The last time they spoke, more than a few text messages from airports, was a few days ago; Seungcheol fell asleep listening to the sound of Joshua speaking quietly, and woke up alone. Tonight, they don’t say much more as they move quickly, Seungcheol only feeling a little bad about their friends waiting for them downstairs as he balls his fists in the extra fabric of Joshua’s (his) shirt before pulling it off. 

Over six months, they’ve gotten good at this, the art of making their time count. It’s how Seungcheol ends up on his knees in front of Joshua, both of them breathing hard and a little out of their minds. After Joshua comes, after he pulls Seungcheol up and backs him against the wall, jerking him off messily, Seungcheol does his damndest to bite his tongue as he looks half-lidded at Joshua, so pretty and so focused, and not tell him he loves him. 

They eat dinner later, holding hands under the table like they’re kids, the warmth of Joshua sitting close next to him comforting, and Seungcheol tries not to feel strange about everything. It’s gotten harder lately, and it makes things worse when Seungcheol remembers how well Joshua fits into their entirely oversized outfit. He watches Joshua and Mingyu joke easily, and it makes some part of him hurt, only he doesn’t know which part. 

“You have sauce on your face, you know,” Joshua tells him, glancing at him with half a grin. Seungcheol isn’t sure how Joshua looks so delicate eating the greasy slice of pizza in front of him, but he supposes Joshua has made stranger things look delicate. 

“Cute,” Jeonghan offers, monotone, from across the table. Seungcheol kicks him, and Jeonghan pouts. It makes Joshua laugh, face scrunched from behind where his hand covers his mouth. 

When they get into bed to sleep, Seungcheol tries not to think about how this is the first time he’s felt settled in months, with Joshua’s arms around his back, and how long it’ll be before he feels settled again.

++

Seungcheol isn’t sure he’s ever seen Hansol this frazzled. Usually it’s Seungkwan running around with stress obvious on his face, but today, Hansol hasn’t stopped fidgeting for two hours.

“I can’t — shit,” he mutters as he tries to get his bow tie right for the fourth time, fingers dropping uselessly. 

“Hey,” Seungcheol calls from the chair in the corner of the room he’s been sitting in for the past ten minutes. “You okay?”

Hansol turns around and gives Seungcheol a slightly panicked look. “Sort of.” 

Seungcheol sighs before standing up and walking in front of Hansol, straightening the ends of the bow tie before tying it himself. 

From where he’s leaning against the window, Minghao asks, “What are you freaking out about?” 

“Weddings are the worst,” Hansol complains in a quiet whine. “My whole stupid family is here, and they’re not even going to understand half of the ceremony, and what if they’re weird to Seugkwan’s family? And what if —” Hansol apparently wants to keep talking, but Minghao cuts him off.

“So just stupid shit, then,” Minghao says decisively, expression unchanged.

Hansol’s open mouth drops closed. “Stupid compared to what?”

“I mean, it’s your wedding day, and you could be freaking out about really major stuff, like your commitment to your partner or whatever, but that’s all fine. It’s just the stupid shit.” 

Minghao always has this way about him, where he manages to be blunt and comforting at the same time. It’s particularly effective on Hansol, who always just goes quiet for a minute before realizing Minghao’s right.

Seungcheol finishes Hansol’s bow tie, straightening it neatly, as Hansol swallows. “I guess, yeah.” 

“Look,” Minghao says, stepping away from the wall. “No one cares about your wedding. I mean, we care about you, and we’re happy to be here and everything, but this part doesn’t matter. Maybe it matters to your family, but what really matters is you’re getting married. Not how it happens. Not if your uncle can understand Seungkwan’s speeches that he’s definitely going to cry through.” 

“He’s right,” Seungcheol mutters, resting a hand on Hansol’s shoulder. 

Hansol looks a little choked up as he nods. “Yeah. He is. You are,” he aims at Minghao. “Thanks.” 

Minghao just shrugs. “It’s just the truth.” 

Hansol nods again, pausing before apparently something else occurs to him. “Is Seungkwan freaking out? I feel like he’s freaking out.”

“Probably,” Minghao answers without missing a beat. “When is he not freaking out? Soonyoung and Seokmin are with him, though, so.”

Seungcheol isn’t sure where Seungkwan got off to, only that he mentioned something about making sure everything was where it needed to be. He’s probably doing laps around the little event hall that Hansol’s family rented, yapping like a dog while Seokmin and Soonyoung try to calm him down. He’s not sure where Joshua is either — he lost track of him after he decided that Hansol looked like he needed some support and followed him back to the little makeshift dressing room. 

“I’m sure he’s fine,” Seungcheol lies, probably unconvincingly. Hansol raises an eyebrow.

“I mean, he’ll end up fine, at least,” Seungcheol amends. 

“How long til this starts?” Hansol asks, looking down at his wrist only to find it missing his watch. 

“About half an hour,” Minghao answers, looking down at his phone. “Also, Seokmin says Seungkwan’s fine.”

“What did he really say?” Hansol asks.

Minghao sighs. “He really said ‘Seungkwan is dying, please let this wedding start already.’”

“That sounds right,” Hansol replies, but at least he’s kind of smiling. 

“Everything’s okay, Hansollie,” Seungcheol mutters, stepping in to hug Hansol. 

Hansol sighs a little, hugging him back. “I know. It’s just stressful. When people travel eight thousand miles to watch you kiss your boyfriend, that’s a lot of pressure.”

“Husband,” Minghao corrects from behind them. 

“Oh. Right. Weird,” Hansol mumbles. “Husband.” 

When Seungcheol pulls back, there’s a little grin on Hansol’s face, his cheeks pink, and it’s painfully sweet. It’s strange, seeing two people Seungcheol has known since they were messy kids grow up together into something so firm and so real.

The moment is interrupted by Seungkwan coming into the room in a huff, looking irritated. “My sisters are so annoying,” he announces, apparently not caring that there was already some stuff going on in this room.

“Yeah?” Hansol asks automatically, looking interested. He steps away from Seungcheol and Minghao, walking over to fix Seungkwan’s collar, missing its own tie. Seungkwan softens immediately as he looks more closely at Hansol.

“You look so handsome,” Seungkwan says, voice almost whining. It makes Hansol laugh, looking embarrassed.

“You do too. What’d your sisters do?” 

Seungcheol and Minghao glance at each other, Minghao rolling his eyes and gesturing to the door.

“See you soon,” Seungcheol says as they leave, and neither Hansol or Seungkwan really seem to notice them much. 

 

 

Seungcheol should have known he wasn’t going to get out of this ceremony without crying. 

He makes it through most of it; he’s fine when they both walk down the aisle, meeting their wedding party at the front of the altar (Seungkwan’s sisters, Hansol’s sister, Soonyoung, Seokmin, Mingyu and Minghao, all looking pleased.) He’s fine when the officiant says sweet things, first in Korean and next in English. It’s a short ceremony, probably for the sake of not losing interest of anyone who couldn’t understand all of it, and Seungcheol thinks he’s in the clear until they each read vows to each other.

He knew Seungkwan’s were going to be sentimental and that he’d end up crying, but what finally gets him is when Hansol just smiles and steps toward him, wiping Seungkwan’s tears with the pad of his thumb before he starts crying, too. There’s something about that, the two of them laughing, voices watery, their vows on hold as they just stare at each other like it’s _everything_ , that makes Seungcheol’s eyes burn. 

He knows what love looks like. He sees it all the time: he sees Jeonghan stare after Soonyoung fondly, he sees Wonwoo keep notes that Junhui leaves on their cabinets in the morning, and the way Jihoon will always let Mingyu in, even when he doesn’t want to talk to anyone else. He’s seen it in his own life, too, across boyfriends. Seungcheol’s seen love countless times, and it’s always made him feel warm, endeared. This, though, hits him harder than he’s used to. Maybe it’s the event of it all, the fact that it’s such a vulnerable moment in front of so many people, but maybe it’s just what it is. Regardless, Seungcheol feels tears press at his eyes quickly, so happy for his friends, so happy that they can look at each other like that. 

Joshua must notice, because then there’s a hand holding onto his, and Seungcheol appreciates it, but there’s a funny feeling in his gut, too.

 _Are you happy like this?_ , Jeonghan asked him a month ago, concern on his features. 

The best Seungcheol could answer was _Sometimes_. Jeonghan dropped it, but Seungcheol’s been thinking about it. 

Sometimes, he’s really happy like this. Sometimes, they’re together and nothing feels more natural, like they were always meant to bump into each other and stay in each other’s orbit. Sometimes, Seungcheol forgets that they are impermanent, because everything feels so right. Sometimes, Joshua looks at him and it’s everything. 

But “sometimes” is inherently at odds with “forever,” and that’s what he’s looking at now. He’s looking at the kind of thing that’s forever, and everyone can tell. Hansol and Seungkwan eventually recover, and Hansol just says, “Sorry. He always makes me cry,” in English to the crowd at large without taking his eyes off of Seungkwan. When he repeats himself in Korean for Seungkwan’s benefit, Seungkwan whines and slaps at Hansol’s chest at the altar, and Hansol’s wobbly laugh is echoed by the people watching in the audience. 

And while Seungcheol laughs along, he wishes he didn’t feel so empty about it. 

 

 

The reception is loud and fun, everyone getting tipsy and making fools of themselves, and it’s a good distraction, but it ends eventually. The twelve of them (without Hansol and Seungkwan, who were drunk by the time they got in their limo to their hotel) make their way back to the house in a state of complete disarray. Mingyu started crying at some point, emotional over his best friend’s wedding, and his sad little sobbing noises mixed with the bright pop song on the radio in the cab that Jihoon, Mingyu, Joshua and Seungcheol took, an odd soundtrack. 

Everyone stays downstairs, Junhui opening another bottle of champagne because apparently they have a lot to celebrate, but Seungcheol doesn’t feel up to it. He’s sober, and there’s still that hollow feeling in his stomach, prickling at him uncomfortably all night while he watched Joshua laugh with his friends. 

“Are you alright?” Joshua asks him as they lean against the kitchen island, ignoring whatever heartfelt speech Seokmin is making on Hansol and Seungkwan’s behalf (which, to be fair, almost everyone besides Minghao is ignoring.)

“Just...tired,” Seungcheol finally lands on. Joshua gives him a look before he nods.

“Let’s go to bed, then,” Joshua says softly, comforting, and god, Seungcheol wishes it didn’t make him sad.

Seungcheol nods along, and they wave goodnight to the assorted crowd before making their way upstairs quietly. Neither of them says anything as they start to shake the wedding off, Joshua mussing his hair in the mirror as he unties his tie. 

Seungcheol doesn’t know what makes him say it. Maybe the memory of Hansol fixing Seungkwan’s collar that morning before the wedding, as he watches Joshua’s fingers on his own. All he knows is that he says it, looks over at Joshua, sucks in a nervous breath, and says, “I don’t think we should keep doing this.” 

It breaks the silence that had settled over the room since they shut the door to the house’s noise. Downstairs, Seungcheol’s sure that Jihoon’s still wiping tears from Mingyu’s eyes and pretending to make fun of it. He’s sure that Junhui is piled in Wonwoo’s lap, Wonwoo’s fingers carding through his hair easily, because they’ve been doing it for so long. He’s positive that Soonyoung is already asleep, making Jeonghan drag him to bed fondly. Maybe Seokmin and Minghao are even doing more than staring at each other heavily from across the room, as they’ve taken to doing over the last few months. Meanwhile, Seungcheol is upstairs with Joshua, a man he’s still trying not to say I love you to, because he’s not really Seungcheol’s to love. 

Joshua’s frozen across the room, dress shirt half untucked from his pants at this point. “What?”

“I...I don’t know that this is working, Shua.” It’s hard to get out, and harder to watch the furrow of Joshua’s brow as he processes that.

He stays quiet, and the way his face is going sad makes Seungcheol’s stomach hurt, so he keeps talking. “I want that. That,” He says, pointing downstairs, pointing generally outward to where two of his best friends are out there in the world, so in love that it’s blinding. “And we can’t...this isn’t that.” 

“You aren’t doing a great job at this breakup speech,” Joshua says, voice quiet and a little cold in a way Seungcheol’s never heard before.

Seungcheol closes his eyes, sighing. “It’s killing me to keep this up.” 

There’s an angry set on Joshua’s face at that. “Well, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I was killing you.” 

Seungcheol winces. Yeah, he regrets that one. “It’s not you, Shua. You know it’s not you. I…” Seungcheol presses his mouth into a line. If there’s ever a time to not tell him, it’s definitely now. “I care about you so much. When we’re together, it’s so _fucking_ good.” There’s something desperate in his voice as he says it to Joshua, still standing across the room; it’s important that he says this, above anything else, important that Joshua knows.

The anger melts away from Joshua’s face, but there’s a slump in his shoulders to replace it, a resignation. “The in-between,” he says quietly.

“I can’t do it. Back when we started, I said I was gonna try, and I tried, but.”

Joshua comes to sit down next to Seungcheol, not looking at him. “Yeah. We both tried.”

“Are you happy like this?” Seungcheol asks quietly, revoicing Jeonghan’s question again. “With us like this?”

“I’m fucking scared is what I am,” Joshua breathes. “I’m terrified, Seungcheol.” It’s quiet and it’s honest, and Seungcheol lets Joshua’s pause sit in the air. “ _You_ make me happy. Doesn’t that count for something?” 

“It’s counted for a lot. It’s counted for six months,” Seungcheol tells him. “It still counts.”

“I don’t…” Joshua trails off, voice watery. “I don’t want to lose you, Seungcheol.” 

“I don’t want that either,” Seungcheol says quietly, head tipped down toward his lap. “But if we keep doing this, if we keep pretending it doesn’t matter that we’re so far apart, I don’t think I’ll be able to deal with it.” 

They’re both quiet, until Joshua lets out a telltale sniffle that feels like a punch in Seungcheol’s gut. He picks his head up and turns to the side Joshua’s sitting on, wrapping him in a hug without thinking about it. He’s never seen Joshua cry before, and god is it awful. He keeps a hand steady on Joshua’s back, shaking like he doesn’t want it to, and another on the back of his neck. 

They sit like that for a while, neither of them saying much. It’s maybe five minutes of silence before Joshua speaks.

“I know you’re right,” Joshua gets out, muffled against Seungcheol’s shoulder, and the sound of his voice is enough to make Seungcheol’s own eyes well up. “I really know. It’s just that you’re the best person I’ve ever been with.” 

“You are too,” Seungcheol mutters weakly, voice wobbling.

“Oh god, don’t cry,” Joshua pleads, pulling back from Seungcheol’s shirt to rub his red eyes in Seungcheol’s direction. “I know I’m crying, but you can’t cry.” 

“Well, too late,” Seungcheol huffs, rubbing at his own eyes. 

Joshua lets out something like a broken laugh. “This is such a mess. I’m so in love with you, Seungcheol.” 

It knocks the wind out of Seungcheol, like someone just shoved him down onto the ground. He struggles for the breath to get out, “I love you too.” 

They both go quiet again, rubbing their eyes, and they stay quiet for a while. Joshua stands back up and finishes pulling his dress shirt out of his slacks, stepping out of those too. He pulls on a loose t-shirt, hanging down past the hem of his boxer-briefs, and lies down on the bed. Seungcheol follows his lead after a moment, mussing his own hair from the careful part Mingyu put in it this morning with gel. He takes off his wedding clothes, wrinkled as they are, and lies down next to Joshua in pajamas. 

It stays quiet between them, just the sound of echoed talking coming from downstairs as he lies next to Joshua on the bed.

“We could have been something really good, if things were different,” Joshua says eventually. It’s quiet, sad, and it makes Seungcheol ache. 

“Yeah, I think you’re right,” Seungcheol agrees. He feels hollow again, a little unsure of what to do next.

“Do you want me to leave?” Joshua asks. He sounds hesitant, like it’s a question he doesn’t want the answer to.

“No,” Seungcheol says immediately. “I don’t want that at all. Do you want to leave?”

“No,” Joshua replies with a sigh. “I want...I want a lot of things. I want you.” 

Seungcheol doesn’t have a good answer to that, so he just rolls over in the bed and rests his head on Joshua’s chest, curled up to his side in a way that’s become familiar. Joshua sighs again, bringing a hand up to brush through Seungcheol’s hair.

“I’m sorry,” Seungcheol breathes, and aches with how much he means it. There are tears pricking at his eyes again, hot and embarrassing.

“Me too,” Joshua says softly. He’s still running his hand through Seungcheol’s hair lazily when he asks, “When are you going home?”

“Tomorrow night,” Seungcheol answers. He doesn’t care why Joshua wants to know; he doesn’t care about anything, really.

“We have another day, then. Right?” Joshua asks, sitting up a little and jostling Seungcheol along with him. “Can we have another day?”

The logical thing to say is probably no. But Joshua is looking at him sad and a little desperate, and Seungcheol wants to say yes more than anything, absolutely anything. “We can have another day,” Seungcheol agrees with a nod. 

Joshua nods back before he lies down again, pulling Seungcheol in close to him. They’re naturals at this by now, at fitting together easily and comfortably, and Seungcheol slings an arm around Joshua’s middle and buries his nose into the fabric of Joshua’s shirt. Like it’s just another night that they’re falling asleep together, like they’re going to wake up and have a normal day. Like they’re not both mourning something they never really had. 

“Turn the light off, babe,” Joshua tells him quietly. “Let’s go to bed.” 

Seungcheol nods before rolling out of the big guest bed, flipping off the light switch on the wall and making his way back to bed. In the darkness, he finds Joshua on the bed, the outline of his narrow frame, and settles back into him. Their grip on each other is desperate, too tight, giving away the lie of the familiarity of the situation, and it hurts. 

“I love you,” Seungcheol says again, just because he can now. Just because there’s nothing left to lose, just because he’s been holding himself back for so long. 

“I love you too.” Joshua’s voice is soft as always, and it makes Seungcheol go warm in a way that makes him want to cry again. 

Neither of them fall asleep easy, Seungcheol can tell, and they stay lying there for a long time before Seungcheol finally drifts off. But they don’t say anything else for the rest of the night.

++

They don’t discuss it the next morning, neither of them wasting the words before kissing each other fervently, holding onto each other tight and barely taking their eyes off each other. Seungcheol maps every possible inch of Joshua’s body with his eyes, with his lips, with his hands. It’s like they’ve been starved of each other and they’re trying to savor the taste as they take their time together, trying to burn the other into their memory.

Joshua looks down at him reverently, honest-to-god reverence, and it’s so wholly overwhelming that he wants to close his eyes, but he can’t. He won’t forgive himself if he doesn’t pay attention to this, to the pants and sounds falling out of Joshua’s mouth, to the way they look pressed together, to the curve of Joshua’s body naked above him. 

“Beautiful,” he mutters later as he looks up at Joshua’s face, brows furrowed with concentration as he thrusts into Seungcheol.

Joshua’s face slips into a little smile for a moment, like he’s amused, and he breathes back, “Love you.” 

Seungcheol doesn’t have it in him to smile at that, so he just grabs Joshua’s jaw and pulls him into a kiss that says I love you back. 

They shower together, quiet under the water. Seungcheol lathers the shampoo in Joshua’s hair carefully, gently, and Joshua closes his eyes so sweetly at the feeling. Seungcheol’s heart swells in his chest at the sight.

“Let’s take a walk,” Joshua says when they’re dressed, so they do. There’s the smell of breakfast downstairs, and Seungcheol knows they’re avoiding everyone else. It hits Seungcheol then that they don’t just lose each other after tonight, they lose each other’s friends, too. He thinks about how Amber took him to lunch one day the last time he was in L.A., just the two of them, and the way she said that he was good for Joshua. He wonders if that was true, after all.

They get out of the house without much trouble. They must look sad, because when Jeonghan catches sight of him, he pulls Soonyoung back from asking them where they’re going. Seungcheol isn’t sure if Joshua even looks up at them. 

Hansol’s aunt’s house is in the kind of neighborhood Seungcheol’s only seen in movies; they had to come through a big gate to drive into the neighborhood, and inside, everyone’s homes are huge and pristine. There are sprinklers running on people’s yards, the occasional glimpse of someone in a pool out back. Seungcheol and Joshua hold hands as they walk down the sidewalk, not saying much but stepping in time with one another. 

There isn’t much to say, he supposes, but he speaks anyway. “I’m sorry,” he says, for only the second or third time, but he’s thought it hundreds of times.

“Stop apologizing,” Joshua tells him, not unkindly. His voice sounds calm, but there’s something sad in it. “You don’t need to.” 

“I feel like I need to. I feel like this is my fault,” Seungcheol admits quietly. 

“It’s not anyone’s fault, Seungcheol. Really.” Even now, Joshua is comforting. Level-headed. It comforts Seungcheol for a moment, before he remembers he probably won’t have Joshua next to him the next time he feels off-balance and needs Joshua’s stability to get him back to center. Is it normal to rely on a man you only see every couple months like that? Is any of this normal?

“What am I going to do without you?” Seungcheol’s trying to keep his voice light, but he must fail miserably, because Joshua glances over at him with hurt on his face. 

“I’m trying not to think about it,” Joshua says, voice too honest. 

They don’t say anything else after that, just walk in time with each other down the too-sunny sidewalk, like the weather is mocking them. It should be raining at times like this, and the sun should know better. He feels dramatic and petulant, he feels unlike himself.

 

“I want to go to the beach,” Joshua tells him when they get back to the house. There’s no one around, everyone else apparently making the most of their last day in America. Seungkwan’s aunt, a flight attendant, was the one who got them the group tickets at a discount, and Seungcheol isn’t particularly looking forward to flying home with everyone later. He wants more privacy than that will afford him. 

“Let’s go to the beach, then,” he says, giving Joshua as much of a smile as he can really muster. Joshua returns the expression, walking over and kissing Seungcheol softly. 

“Okay,” he says, leans in again to kiss Seungcheol’s cheek. 

They’re only a fifteen minute drive from the nearest beach, a different ocean than either of them are used to. It’s too cold to swim, only about twenty degrees out, and they both wear jeans and carry their shoes and walk down the fairly deserted sand. The ocean is pretty, and Joshua looks even prettier against it, hair ruffled by the wind. 

“I’m really going to miss you,” Joshua says eventually, looking out at the ocean. They’re standing still, but Seungcheol’s not sure which one of them stopped first.

“Me too,” Seungcheol says. 

“I’m...I’m not good at goodbyes,” Joshua tells him. He sounds nervous, swallowing as he looks over at Seungcheol. “I always fuck them up.” 

“Wanna do it now, then?” Seungcheol asks. He has an hour before he needs to leave for the airport, and he doesn’t know if he can handle Joshua coming with him to say goodbye. “Then if you fuck it up, you have some time to fix it.”

Joshua smiles at him a little, and Seungcheol smiles back. “Yeah. Let’s do it now.” 

Joshua sits down in the sand, bare feet out in front of him, and Seungcheol follows suit. “You’re one of my favorite people, I think. You’re one of the best people.” Joshua says it all still staring out at the ocean, and Seungcheol feels his chest ache. 

“Shua,” he starts, but Joshua shakes his head. 

“I really...I really never meant to fall in love with you,” he says with a sad little laugh. “I don’t think you did either. And I’m not sorry I did, I guess? But it fucking hurts.” 

“Yeah,” Seungcheol mutters. “It does.” 

“I wish things were different,” Joshua says softly. He’s said it before, but it hurts more this time. 

Seungcheol doesn’t bother agreeing. Instead, he says, “Hey. Everything happens for a reason, right?” He’s trying desperately to convince himself, anyway. 

Joshua looks over, giving him a sad smile. “Maybe.” 

Seungcheol has a lot of things he wants to say. He wants to tell Joshua that he’s never felt like this before, about anybody, that he’s terrified they’re doing the wrong thing. That he doesn’t know how he’ll stop thinking about him. Instead, he just says, “I love you.” 

“I love you too, Seungcheol,” Joshua says. He leans his head over onto Seungcheol’s shoulder. “Goodbye.” 

“That was a pretty good one,” Seungcheol tells him, tries to joke past the lump in his throat.

“Not as good as it needs to be,” Joshua says back. Seungcheol can’t think of anything to say to that. 

They stand up eventually, dust the sand off of their jeans and get a ride back to the house. Everyone’s bags are in the living room, voices echoing around upstairs; they’re cutting it close to when they need to leave, but they should be fine. 

Joshua’s face has looked sad since they left the beach, and he looks a little queasy standing in front of all the suitcases. “I...let me help you with your bag,” he says before he leads the way to the stairs quickly, not waiting for Seungcheol to follow. 

“Oh, hyung’s back. Come on, the shuttle’s coming soon,” Seokmin says, peering down over the railing of the stairs. He seems to realize something’s up as Joshua and Seungcheol come up the stairs, though, and looks between them awkwardly. “We’ll, um. Wait downstairs for you.” 

Seungcheol just nods at him, barely taking his eyes off of Joshua. 

Seungcheol’s bag is packed, all his things lying neatly in the middle of the room, and Seungcheol and Joshua both pause in front of them, like they both wanted there to be more to do. They stand there still for a moment, until Seungcheol steps up to Joshua and kisses him softly. He doubts himself after he does it, pulls back in case Joshua wants him to, but Joshua just leans in again, bringing his hands up to cup Seungcheol’s face. They kiss like they need it to breathe, hands grabbing desperately at each other. 

“I hate this,” Seungcheol breathes when he pulls away, eyes still closed as he leans his forehead against Joshua’s. Joshua just runs a hand through his hair and nods. 

“Hyung!” A voice calls from downstairs. “Time to go!”

Joshua and Seungcheol breathe together, neither of them moving, until Joshua eventually backs away. “Come on. You need to go.” 

The suitcase thumps down each stair individually, loudly, and Seungcheol winces when they finally get to the bottom, the wheels clacking loudly against the wood floor. 

Everyone else’s things are outside already, a handful of them visible outside loading things into a white airport shuttle van. 

They stop at the front door, Joshua looking nervously outside. “If they ask, tell them bye for me.” 

Seungcheol nods. “I will.” He pulls his own suitcase out the door, and he stands there, looking at Joshua standing in the doorframe. 

“I…” Seungcheol starts, then pauses.

“We already did this part, right?” Joshua asks. There’s an edge in his voice, like he’s panicked, and his calm face is slipping. 

Seungcheol thinks he understands, knows that Joshua’s trying to protect himself, so he nods. “Yeah. We did. Um...stay safe. Have a good flight home.” 

“You too,” Joshua mutters. 

“I want you to be happy,” Seungcheol can’t stop himself from saying. “I really want that.”

“Yeah,” Joshua replies, and Seungcheol pretends not to hear the crack in his voice. “Me too. For both of us.” 

Seungcheol glances back, and he knows without looking too hard that it’s Jeonghan still standing outside of the shuttle, waiting for him. He turns back to Joshua and swallows roughly. “Goodbye.” 

Joshua steps forward and wraps his arms around Seungcheol’s shoulders tightly, fingers gripping roughly. When he pulls back, he presses a kiss to Seungcheol’s forehead before stepping back into the doorway. 

“Goodbye,” Joshua breathes back. Seungcheol looks at him, wants to burn this image of him into his brain, doesn’t want to forget it for a second.

But that’s it. Seungcheol rips himself away, turns around toward the van even though it feels like a puncture wound, lets Jeonghan put his suitcase in the back of the van. Everyone’s inside talking normally, and Seungcheol knows for certain that Jeonghan told them all to leave him alone. He’s a good friend, really, and the gesture makes Seungcheol want to cry a little more than he already did. 

Seungcheol’s already dreading the next few hours of waiting around, and the seventeen hours after that. He wants to be home, with his dog, and his bed, and nothing else. The time passes strangely, both too slow and too fast at the same time, and suddenly they’re boarding a plane. He’s sure he was paying attention for the past two hours after they went through security and waited at their gate, but now he can’t remember much of it. His brain’s a mess, everything’s a mess. 

As they’re boarding, Seungcheol realizes he doesn’t even know who he’s sitting with, but that’s when Jeonghan loops his arm through Seungcheol’s. 

“Come on,” Jeonghan says, “Do you want the window seat?” 

Seungcheol nods, and lets Jeonghan lead him to their row, gesturing for him to take the furthest seat. Jeonghan sits down next to him, and Soonyoung probably sits down third, but Seungcheol doesn’t check and Jeonghan doesn’t acknowledge him. Instead, he’s turned to Seungcheol, looking at him without pity.

“I’m so sorry, Cheollie,” he says, soft and sincere, and Seungcheol just bites his lip and nods. God, does he not want to finally lose it on this plane. 

“I love you,” Jeonghan says, and Seungcheol nods again.

“Thanks. Love you too,” he manages, and Jeonghan leans his head on Seungcheol’s shoulder, putting an arm across his torso in a scrunched-up sitting cuddle of sorts. 

Jeonghan knows him well enough to not say anything else after that, just stay cuddled up to him, even after they need to put their seatbelts on. It’s comforting, and eventually Seungcheol grabs onto Jeonghan’s arm, holding his hand. They’ve been doing this forever, both of them clingy when they’re sad, and it’s always worked out well for them, this particular brand of affection. 

“I’m going to come stay with you, when we get home,” Jeonghan says at some point. Seungcheol has no idea how long they’ve been flying; he keeps slipping in and out of consciousness, and the plane lights have been off for hours. 

Seungcheol just nods back at Jeonghan, barely awake. “What about Soonyoung?”

“Fuck Soonyoung,” Jeonghan mutters. 

“Yeah, fuck me,” Soonyoung agrees from the third seat. Seungcheol manages a half-hearted laugh.

“Okay,” he agrees. “Come stay with me.” 

He’s almost asleep again when Jeongan asks softly, “You really loved him, didn’t you?”

It startles Seungcheol into opening his eyes all the way, blinking rapidly. “Yeah. I did.” And goddamn it, that’s what finally does it, tears dropping before he can do anything to tell them to stop.

“Shit,” Jeonghan mumbles. “I’m sorry.” 

Seungcheol just shakes his head, not trusting his voice, and lets Jeonghan squeeze his hand, wrap his arm tighter around his middle. “Oh, Seungcheol,” he says with a sigh. 

Seungcheol falls back asleep eventually, losing his will to cry or do much of anything else. He feels numb, mostly, as an announcement plays in Korean and English wakes him up and informs him that they’re making their descent. Seungcheol has no idea what time it is; he feels disconnected from everything except the way Jeonghan is asleep on his chest. 

Jeonghan is the one that pulls him through the motions as they get out of their seats, go collect their luggage and go their separate ways. Seungcheol catches him glaring sharply at people every time they looked at Seungcheol pityingly, and it almost made him want to laugh. 

“I’ll see you around,” Jeonghan tells Soonyoung, leaning in to kiss his cheek. “Unpack your damn suitcase before I get home, please.”

“No promises. Have fun at your sleepover,” Soonyoung says with a smile. 

“You’re so lazy,” Jeonghan complains.

“You’re a really good friend,” Soonyoung says in return. They’re being quiet enough that Seungcheol shouldn’t even really hear them, but of course, he does. 

Jeonghan just shrugs. “He would do the same thing for me.” 

“Hope he doesn’t need to,” Soonyoung says with a chuckle. 

“We’ll see if you unpack that fucking suitcase.” 

When Jeonghan walks back to where Seungcheol was waiting with their suitcases, he offers him a kind smile. “Come on, let’s go get Gongju and go home.”

Seungcheol nods, following after him easily, finding it easier to follow directions than think for himself what to do. 

When they’re standing in the subway car on their way to the dogsitter Seungcheol hired, Jeonghan looks at him seriously and puts a hand on his shoulder. “You’re going to be okay, Cheollie,” he says softly. 

Seungcheol looks down for a second, before he looks back up at Jeonghan. “If you say so,” he says with a tired half-smile.

Jeonghan smiles back at him, a carefully constructed thing. “Of course. I’m a genius.” 

That makes Seungcheol laugh for real, which feels good. “Of course,” he echoes, and lets his best friend pull him toward the door of the subway car, and toward something that will make him feel better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> don’t hate me! this fic has a happy ending! hopefully i’ll have time to update soon! thank you for reading!


	5. we'll figure out the rest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seungcheol thinks about Jeonghan telling him he’ll be okay, and he wonders how long it’ll take to get there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gosh well here it is, the THRILLING conclusion to this emo mess. big thanx to my pals for listening to me whine about writing this fic ALL SUMMER LONG BASICALLY. there's lots of jeonghan and lots of soonhan this chapter because,, i love them very much,,
> 
> another thing: this fic has [a playlist!](https://open.spotify.com/user/1295168316/playlist/5FqTxLCs7t2niACT5G5hkz) i've actually been curating it since....god, june, i guess. icb i've been writing this for 6 months. 
> 
> anyway i hope you've enjoyed reading this! thanks for all the love i've gotten for it, and i'm sorry again for makin you sad last time around. i hope this one makes up for it.
> 
> (chapter title from wet's "you're the best")

They used to live together, he and Jeonghan, once upon a time. They shared an apartment for their last two years of university, and over that time, Jeonghan dealt with enough bullshit that Seungcheol developed a routine for dealing with his heartbreak. 

It was a three-step plan; step one was buying ice cream, because it pissed Jeonghan off in a way that distracted him from being sad (“What is this, a movie? I don’t even like ice cream that much,” he would say every time, before eating half of the container); step two was to find a DVD of something nostalgic. Sailor Moon had a high success rate, so did old dramas Seungcheol remembered watching in junior high. They would watch either for hours. Step three was to lay in bed together in the dark, Seungcheol not prompting but waiting for Jeonghan to get out whatever he wanted to. It got to a point, at Jeonghan’s most turbulent times, where there were always about four half-empty containers of ice cream in their freezer on any day.

Seungcheol almost never got the same treatment, not because Jeonghan didn’t care, but because it usually wasn’t necessary. He never had Jeonghan’s problem of falling fast and hard before running away, never felt breakups as the bitter loss that Jeonghan was known to (even when Jeonghan was usually responsible for them himself.)

“We never do this for me,” Seungcheol says now, voice quiet in the convenience store down the block from his apartment. Gongju is tied up outside, and Seungcheol is aware of the fact that her paws are going to get cold soon, and they need to hurry up. 

Jeonghan doesn’t look at him, just rifling through the ice cream flavors in the big freezer in front of him. “That’s not true. We’ve done it before.” 

They don’t usually go through the whole routine, but Jeonghan always does this when Seungcheol breaks up with someone. Stays the night, plays the role of a sympathetic breakup doctor, keeps an arm wrapped around Seungcheol for a few hours. Underneath it all, Jeonghan is sweeter than he knows what to do with.

“Not with the ice cream and everything. Not with Coffee Prince,” Seungcheol says, referencing the mention of it Jeonghan made earlier while they were picking up Gongju, eyebrows raised. “Also, do you just always have all of Coffee Prince on your laptop?”

“Maybe,” Jeonghan answers with a sharp glance. “Mind your own business.” 

Despite himself, Seungcheol gives half a grin, and Jeonghan returns it after a moment.

“I’m doing it because I want to,” Jeonghan says a moment later, ice cream in his hand. 

Seungcheol doesn’t say anything to that, just follows him to the register and leans his chin on Jeonghan’s shoulder while he pays, easy and comfortable.

 

Seungcheol’s apartment feels quiet. It’s not any emptier than usual, of course, but after being crammed together with thirteen other people for a few days, it’s strange to have his own space again. Gongju bounds in and goes for her toys immediately, lying down and chewing on them happily. Seungcheol wheels both his and Jeonghan’s suitcases in, leaving them in the middle of the living room before going to sit down on the couch. 

“Do you have food?” Jeonghan calls from the kitchen, before the open of the refrigerator door. “God, no, you don’t. Order dinner, Cheollie.” 

The night goes on like that for a bit, Jeonghan giving him simple directions and Seungcheol following them. They eat dinner quietly, Jeonghan mostly talking about work and scolding Gongju for begging while Seungcheol nods and chews, feeling vaguely empty.

It’s not until after dinner (but before ice cream), two episodes into Coffee Prince, that Jeonghan finally sighs and pulls Seungcheol closer to him, leaning his head on Seungcheol’s shoulder. “You wanna talk about it?”

Seungcheol sighs back, closing his eyes. “Not really. Not yet.” 

“Mm,” Jeonghan mutters. “Okay.” 

And they stay like that. Through two more episodes of Coffee Prince, up too late from jetlag, until Seungcheol finally yawns and Jeonghan pulls him off of the couch easily and shoves some sleep clothes at him. 

It’s familiar, lying in bed next to Jeonghan. They’ve been doing it for years, never questioning it much. Jeonghan’s facing the wall, the blue light of his phone illuminating him as Seungcheol glances at him.

“How’s Soonyoung?” Seungcheol asks, hazarding a guess. 

Jeonghan clicks his tongue. “Hasn’t unpacked the fucking suitcase.”

“He never will,” Seungcheol tells him with half a smile. 

Jeonghan just sighs dramatically, flopping onto his back. “He’s useless.”

“You love him,” Seungcheol replies, ignoring the sour feeling in his stomach. Jealousy, maybe bitterness. 

“Well, obviously, but he’s still useless.” Jeonghan rolls over toward Seungcheol, wrapping an arm around his middle. “You’re very useful. Shame things never worked out between us.” 

“Stop flirting with me,” Seungcheol complains half-heartedly, knowing full well that it’s like telling a fish to stop swimming. A really obnoxious and obvious fish. 

“I won’t,” Jeonghan says, confirming this. “It’s fun. You get all squirmy.” 

“We didn’t work out because you were a damn mess until Soonyoung made you sort yourself out, you know,” Seungcheol tells him easily. It’s easy to talk about, so long after the fact. 

“Yeah, I know,” Jeonghan says with a hum. “So maybe he’s not useless. That probably wasn’t the only reason, though.” 

“Probably not,” Seungcheol agrees. Seungcheol loves Jeonghan, but he doesn’t know if he could have ever handled really dating him, for a multitude of reasons. (“You would drive me insane and I would fuck you over,” Jeonghan told him years ago, the night after their ill-conceived fling, and there was probably truth to that.)

They’re quiet for a moment, Jeonghan tapping Seungcheol’s side with his fingers restlessly, like he might not even realize he’s doing it. 

“I broke up with him,” Seungcheol says finally. Jeonghan’s fingers still.

“I figured,” Jeonghan replies quietly. “You looked off all night.”

“I saw Hansol and Seungkwan and I just…” Seungcheol trails off, loses the words.

“You can’t count on ever getting that with him,” Jeonghan finishes for him. Their voices are hushed in the dark, and it’s incredibly nostalgic, if Seungcheol’s being honest. The way the dark makes them brave and honest makes him feel like he’s twenty again. 

“No,” Seungcheol says after a moment. “I can’t.” 

Jeonghan rubs his hand against Seungcheol’s side, comforting. “You probably did the right thing.” 

Seungcheol lets that settle over him for a minute, and feels sick to his stomach. “It doesn’t feel real yet.” 

“Well, I’ll be here tomorrow when it does,” Jeonghan says softly. “You know, if that helps.” 

“It probably does.” 

“Then I’ll be here.” 

They’re quiet again, Jeonghan backing away from Seungcheol and settling on his side. Seungcheol listens to him move and get comfortable, brain moving too fast for how late it is. He took the day off tomorrow, knowing the jetlag was going to kill him, but something about all that free time is even worse.

“Jeonghannie,” Seungcheol starts a minute later, and Jeonghan shifts his head back in Seungcheol’s direction. He pauses, trying to convince himself to say the words out loud even though they’re terrifying and slightly surreal. “I don’t think I’ve ever loved anyone like that before.” 

Jeonghan’s quiet, doesn’t have a quick reply, just turns his body back to Seungcheol and attaches himself efficiently, arms wrapped around him tight. 

Seungcheol just sighs, closing his eyes. “Sorry,” he mutters.

“What are you sorry for, idiot?” Jeonghan asks him, picking himself up a little. “You have nothing to be sorry for. Okay?”

“Okay,” Seungcheol agrees quietly. 

“Let’s go to sleep, Cheollie,” Jeonghan says softly.

“Okay,” Seungcheol says again. He lets Jeonghan push him around until he’s big spooning Seungcheol, the way he always has, and Seungcheol lets his eyes fall shut again. 

His mind is still moving too fast, trying to outrun the sadness he knows will settle over him soon enough, but Seungcheol focuses on the sound of Jeonghan’s breathing, and the warmth of him, and somehow, he falls asleep eventually. 

(He dreams of the beach, and of Joshua’s smile, and when he wakes up it feels real, but Jeonghan is still there.)

++

Seungcheol throws himself into work.

He knows it’s cliche, avoidant, unhealthy — a whole other slew of adjectives Jeonghan has been letting slip passive aggressively for the last few weeks — but it’s what he does. This whole thing is making Seungcheol realize he never had a lot of hobbies, and he’s beginning to really feel the loss as he itches for things to do with his time. 

He works, and he spends a lot of time at the gym, most of it just spent running on treadmills. (He’s gotten a lot faster, and he’s pleased that when it gets warm out again, he’ll be able go to on runs with Gongju.) Sometimes Mingyu goes with him now, and they race around the track in the upper level of the gym, trying half-heartedly to beat each other’s times. 

He’s a month ahead on the reports he needs to write for work, down to a seven-minute mile, and restless whenever he doesn’t have something to occupy his time. His friends have recommendations, but most of them aren’t quite right; Junhui tells him to try yoga (Seungcheol does _not_ have the flexibility), Wonwoo tells him to journal (he can’t think of anything less appealing than spending more time in his own head), Seungkwan and Soonyoung take him shopping to focus on himself (but Seungcheol’s never seen the appeal of retail therapy, really.) 

He’s trying to tread water, but the truth is, he’s struggling. 

Half of the problem is that after three weeks of radio silence from Joshua, he barely even seems real anymore. The whole thing feels half-forgotten at this point, like he woke up from a dream and tried to write the details down but found he was missing most of them. He’s jolted into remembering everything was real when he finds one of Joshua’s shirts in his laundry, or his skincare products in Seungcheol’s bathroom. The extra toothbrush. The dog toy he got for Gongju at Christmas. The little things that hurt like a puncture wound, like something bleeding steadily. 

It’s mid-March when Seungcheol wakes up to a missed call from Joshua. He stares blearily at the notification before realizing he has a text, too. 

_Sorry, didn’t mean to call_ , the screen reads. 

The last message above that is them joking about a drama they had taken to watching together (apart, but together), and there are little heart stickers visible above too. 

It’s a Saturday at eight in the morning, and Seungcheol aches. It’s been a month since he heard anything from Joshua, heard his voice, talked to him at all. And it hurts. 

He thinks about what might have happened if he answered that phone call — likely, Joshua apologizing awkwardly, and the two of them not knowing when to hang up. It’s good that he was asleep. But also, the thought of hearing Joshua’s voice makes Seungcheol feel desperate and restless, a bone-deep longing. 

He lies in bed, rumpled from sleep and having trouble turning his brain all the way on, and thinks about the way Joshua used to call him _babe_ , soft in English. Thinks about the way they used to fall asleep listening to each other speak. 

_It’s okay,_ he texts back to Joshua, before turning his phone screen off, dropping it under the bed, and pulling the blanket over his head. 

It’s a funny thing, when someone important to you becomes a series of painful interactions. Small talk with someone you loved — it’s torture, Seungcheol thinks. All he wants to do is call Joshua back, tell him...Seungcheol doesn’t know what he wants to tell him. “I miss you,” maybe, even though that won’t help anyone. He wants to listen to Joshua laugh. 

Instead, he rolls over in bed, stroking his dog’s fur and letting himself cry a little, which hasn’t happened in a while. 

He thinks about Jeonghan telling him he’ll be okay, and he wonders how long it’ll take to get there.

++

“You’ll probably have to see him again,” Jeonghan told him carefully back in March, on a rare night that Seungcheol drank a little too much and talked a little too much. “I mean, he travels here a lot. You work at the same company. Have you thought about that?”

Seungcheol, with his head in Jeonghan’s lap and his legs lying across Soonyoung’s, sighed. “Not really.”

“You should, that’s all I’m saying,” Jeonghan told him carefully.

“Yeah, you need to win,” Soonyoung added from the other end of the couch, where he was sitting looking at his phone. For his part, he seemed unbothered with the fact that Jeonghan had spent a good chunk of his time babysitting Seungcheol recently. Probably because Soonyoung is such a good person, Seungcheol thought as he stared over at him. 

“What?” Seungcheol asked, confused. 

“The first time you see someone after you break up, you need to be more put-together with them, and that means you won,” Soonyoung explained calmly.

“I don’t know if Seungcheol believes in that kind of stuff,” Jeonghan said with his nose scrunched up. 

“It’s just the truth,” Soonyoung said with a shrug.

“Yeah, but he’s a better person than us,” Jeonghan said patiently. Soonyoung thought for a minute before he nodded.

“Stop,” Seungcheol whined from below them. 

“I’m just saying,” Soonyoung said, resting his hand on Seungcheol’s shin. “You deserve to win.”

 

In the present, as Seungcheol stands in front of the door to Hansol and Seungkwan’s apartment, faced with the sight of Joshua, looking sleep-worn, he can’t make his jaw snap closed again and feels distinctly like he lost. 

“Joshua?” Seungcheol asks stupidly. He feels like a fish that just accidentally flopped onto shore and can’t find the water again. 

“Oh, god,” Joshua mutters in English, looking exhausted. 

“Um,” Seungcheol manages. 

“I — Jesus, I’m sorry,” Joshua says quietly. “I didn’t...I just got in town last night.” 

“And you’re staying here?” Seungcheol asks, hoping his voice sounds calm and not panicked, because he feels very panicked. 

“My reservation got messed up and I couldn’t get a new one last night, and Hansol offered,” Joshua explains. He looks guilty. 

“Um, I’m just here because Hansol left his bag at my house, and they’ve been bugging me to fix their lamp. Are they home?” Seungchol asks. 

Joshua shakes his head. “They’re at Hansol’s parents'. You can...come in, though,” Joshua offers hesitantly. 

“It’s okay, I can come back, you can —” 

“Seungcheol,” Joshua cuts him off, voice tired and impatient. “Just come in.”

Seungcheol closes his mouth and nods before he does just that. 

Joshua’s suitcase is next to the couch, which is halfheartedly made up like a bed. 

“I don’t know why they always ask me to help with stuff like this,” Seungcheol says, grasping desperately at a thread of conversation to fill up the cavern of awkward silence between them. Joshua is in pajamas still, and the sight makes his heart catch in his throat. 

“Because you’re stupidly good at it,” Joshua replies easily, walking back over to his blanket on the couch and wrapping it around his shoulders. The sight of him this tired, addled from jetlag and exhaustion, is familiar and almost nostalgic. 

“I guess,” Seungcheol says, unscrewing the light bulb from the offending floor lamp. 

It’s quiet, Seungcheol taking the top of the lamp off so he can look at the socket, Joshua shifting on the couch behind him. 

“I’m sorry,” Joshua says quietly, and Seungcheol turns around to look at him with furrowed eyebrows. “I feel shitty, that I’m staying here.”

Seungcheol shakes his head. “You shouldn’t.”

Joshua laughs humorlessly. “Seungkwan didn’t want me here. I could tell.”

“Well,” Seungcheol says uncomfortably. “That’s Seungkwan. He...holds grudges. Even for things he really doesn’t have a right to.” 

“Are you?” Joshua asks after a moment. “Holding a grudge?”

Seungcheol pauses what he’s doing, turning around fully to face Joshua. “What could I possibly hold a grudge for?” 

“If your friends are mad at me, then I obviously hurt you,” Joshua says quietly. He seems more awake now, less grumpy and more thoughtful. 

“I think I hurt you, too,” Seungcheol says, brow furrowed. 

Joshua pauses, looking down at his lap, and doesn’t respond. Seungcheol sighs and walks over to the couch, sitting down with his back against the arm to face Joshua. “I’m sorry about the way everything happened.”

Joshua shakes his head. “It was probably for the best.”

“Probably,” Seungcheol echoes, but he can’t really find it in him to mean it. 

Joshua looks up at him, resting his chin on one of his knees, drawn up to his chest. “I’ve really missed you, Seungcheol.”

Something stirs in Seungcheol’s stomach, some butterflies that still haven’t got the memo, that are still hanging around waiting for an opportunity like this. And he can’t deny himself, can’t lie well enough not to respond, “I’ve really missed you, too.” 

Seungcheol doesn’t know whose fault it is. He doesn’t know who starts it. All he knows is that a moment later, they’re kissing. It’s like coming up for air after you’ve been underwater for too long, the way it fills his lungs and reminds him that he’s alive. It’s perfect, everything about it is perfect (even though they’re scrunched together awkwardly on Hansol and Seungkwan’s couch, even though Seungcheol still has a screwdriver in his hand, even though Joshua’s in pajamas at one in the afternoon.) 

It escalates fast, faster than it really should, and it doesn’t take too long before Seungcheol has Joshua pressed up against the couch, one of Joshua’s legs pulled up to wrap around Seungcheol’s back, one of Seungcheol’s hands on Joshua’s hips. It all comes rushing back, the ways they learned to handle each other gently and tenderly, the ways they learned to make each other gasp and grip tighter. 

“When are Hansol and Seungkwan coming home?” Seungcheol whispers after Joshua’s hands find their way up to Seungcheol’s chest, making him shiver.

“After dinner,” Joshua breathes back, looking up at him with heavy lids. 

“This is a horrible idea,” Seungcheol tells him, because it’s the truth, but he doesn’t move away.

“It really is,” Joshua agrees. 

They stay looking at each other for a moment before Joshua breathes out a challenge, a raised eyebrow as he murmurs, “So?”

So Seungcheol keeps kissing him.

When Joshua’s baggy sleep shirt comes off, following close after Seungcheol’s own, Seungcheol startles at the delicate lines on Joshua’s shoulder. 

“You got another tattoo,” he says, surprise in his voice. 

“Oh,” Joshua says, like he just remembered. “Yeah. I did.” 

It’s flowers, sketched out neatly in black without any color filling them in. Seuncheol remembers faintly Joshua mentioning something about it once, in some conversation months ago, but how he’d always chickened out of actually getting another one. 

“It’s pretty,” Seungcheol says, reaching out a finger to trace a line. It’s small enough that it hid under his t-shirt, but much larger than the script on his side. It’s funny, seeing a permanent change on someone you just saw a couple months ago. Seungcheol isn’t sure how he feels about it, so he leans in again, hands trailing down to Joshua’s waist. 

He’s a bad person for hooking up with his ex-boyfriend, but he’s an especially bad person for hooking up with his ex-boyfriend on his friends’ couch. It’s possibly one of Seungcheol’s least favorite decisions he’s ever made, and he realizes this right in the middle of making it. Joshua’s lips are against his neck, his hand cupping Seungcheol through his underwear, and Seungcheol can already feel the guilt settling in. Still, he doesn’t stop, doesn’t feel the urge to still Joshua’s movements, just keeps going; he lets that warm nostalgia of the grip of Joshua’s fingertips into his back, the sound of Joshua moaning, the feeling of his warm skin so close, outweigh his better judgement. They both get off without much fanfare, hands wrapped around each other as they rut together on the couch, half-undressed. 

When it’s over, they’re left messy and panting, neither of them looking at each other. 

“God,” Joshua mutters, running a clean hand over his face. “That was…” 

He never finishes the sentence, and Seungcheol doesn’t jump in to help him. Pathetic? Great? Both, really.

Seungcheol sighs, pulling back from Joshua to sit up. “We should get cleaned up.” 

Joshua nods, Seungcheol sees it in his periphery. “You wanna go out and get coffee?”

Honestly, Seungcheol wants to go home and wallow. But that’s stupid, and he’s already left Joshua once, so maybe he owes him this. “Okay,” he says. 

They wash up silently in the bathroom, Joshua wordlessly wiping off Seungcheol’s stomach with a wet towel, hands moving carefully. Seungcheol throws the blanket and sheet that were on the couch in the washing machine, cringing as he does so. Sorry, Hansol. Sorry, Seungkwan. 

When Joshua’s dressed properly, a familiar pair of jeans and hoodie covered with a jacket, he looks as good as he always had. When he says, “Come on, let’s go,” Seungcheol is powerless to do anything but that.

 

The cafe they go to is one they’ve visited before, a long time ago. The decor is clean, plants hanging in the windows even though it’s barely April. Seungcheol wonders briefly if they’re fake, because it’s hard to believe they’re that green hanging so close to the cold wind from outside.

Joshua sits across from him, stirring a hot chocolate and looking down at the table. 

“How have you been?” Seungcheol asks, because it’s what you should ask. 

Joshua just looks up at him with his eyebrows raised and half of a smile. “Not great, Seungcheol.” 

Seungcheol nods, gives the same kind of grim smile back. “Yeah. Me too.” 

“Working, mostly. Seeing my friends a lot.” Joshua shrugs. “I don’t know, I’ve been doing the same things I always did. Just without you.” 

It hurts, but Seungcheol just nods. “I like your tattoo.”

Josh gives an almost-real smile at that. “Me too. Amy drew it for me, after Amber finally convinced me to get it.” 

“I didn’t get a tattoo, I’ve just been going to the gym a lot,” Seungcheol says lightly.

“I noticed,” Joshua says with a hum. “Not sure if I like it or not.”

Seungcheol snorts out a short laugh. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, your legs look thinner. I liked your legs the way they were,” Joshua says, only barely flirting. Seungcheol feels himself blush.

“Well, thanks,” he says, taking a sip of his coffee. 

They’re quiet then, hands wrapped around their drinks. 

“I…” Joshua starts. “Something happened.”

Seungcheol furrows his eyebrows. “That sounds scary. What?”

“I can’t think of a way to tell you this without it sounding insane, so. I guess I’ll just say it,” Joshua says, mouth turned down into a frown, gaze locked somewhere to the left of Seungcheol. “I got a job offer.” 

Seungcheol waits, confused, but Joshua doesn’t elaborate. “Okay?” 

“I got an offer to transfer to Seoul.” 

Seungcheol blinks. “What?”

Joshua sighs, looking back down at the table. “Yeah.” 

“That’s...you’re considering it?” Seungcheol asks, recognizing that guarded look on Joshua’s face. 

“I don’t know,” Joshua says, face unreadable as he finally looks at Seungcheol. “I really don’t know.” 

“I just...why?” Seungcheol asks. 

Joshua’s face hardens. “Not for you, in case you were wondering.” 

Seungcheol raises his eyebrows. “Well, alright.” 

“I just didn’t...if I take this, it’s for my own reasons. I just want you to know that,” Joshua says. There’s a defensive edge in his voice, though.

Seungcheol nods, his jaw tight. “You really want to uproot your whole life like that?” He asks. It’s maybe pushing it, he knows, and he probably deserves it when Joshua levels a glare at him.

“What I want to do has nothing to do with you, so you really don’t need to worry about it,” Joshua says coldly. 

Seungcheol sighs. “Yeah, I guess not.”

Joshua shakes his head, looking back down at the table. “You know, I actually wanted your input. You were my really close friend, Seungcheol.” 

Seungcheol runs a hand through his hair. “Well, I really can’t be objective, so.” His voice is hard, because he feels _off_. He and Joshua don’t really argue much — when they broke up, that was the most outwardly upset Seungcheol had ever seen him. Are they just always going to be like this now?

“Why not?” Joshua asks, mirroring Seungcheol’s tone. Their voices are low but tense, and Seungcheol almost wishes his English was a little better so they could have this conversation even more privately as they sit in this cafe. 

“Because I fucking want you here, that’s why not,” Seungcheol finally says, exasperated. “Of course I want you here. But you can’t make a decision based on that, Joshua. You can’t just…” He trails off, frustrated with himself and with the whole situation. 

“Look,” Joshua says after a beat, voice less angry and a little more sad. “I was being serious when I said that if I took it, it wouldn’t be for you. If I took it, it would be because I’ve lived in the same place my entire life, with the same friends my entire life, and I think a change would be good for me.”

“It’s kind of a big change, Joshua,” Seungcheol says in a softer voice. 

“I know,” Joshua insists, raising an eyebrow again, confrontational, before he exhales and shakes his head. “I know.” 

“Have you talked to anyone about it?” Seungcheol asks.

“No, because it’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever even considered doing,” Joshua answers easily.

“You should talk to Hansol about it,” Seungcheol offers. “I mean, he might...have some perspective.” 

“You’re right,” Joshua admits with a nod. 

“I’m sorry I can’t help you. But I really can’t, Joshua,” Seungcheol tells him quietly. “I can’t tell you to move here, because it’s selfish. But I can’t tell you not to, because...I would be lying.” 

Joshua sighs. “A golden retriever of a man. I called you that once already, right?” 

Seungcheol grins at that. “You did, yeah.” 

“Still true. Too good for your own good,” Joshua tells him with half a smile, looking a little sad around the edges. “I miss you a lot.” 

There are a lot of things Seungcheol wants to say, wants to leak out of his poorly bandaged mess of a heart, but he bites his tongue. It’s not fair, saying any of those things, so he settles for, “I miss you too.” 

“We could still be friends, couldn’t we?” Joshua asks. He looks resigned, like he already knows what Seungcheol is going to say, but Seungcheol says it anyway.

“I still have feelings for you,” he admits softly, the safest way he can think of to say that. “And that’s...it’s hard, Joshua.” 

“Yeah, I understand,” Joshua says after a moment. “It’s hard for me too. To sit here with you like this, even that’s hard.” 

They’re quiet for a moment, Seungcheol finishing the last of his coffee, before he bites his lip. “I need to ask you, though.” 

“Yeah?” Joshua prompts, looking up. He has that look again, like he knows what Seungcheol is going to say. 

Seungcheol really has to do this, though, for himself, so he asks, “If you were here, we…?”

“I really can’t think about it, Seungcheol,” Joshua says, resting his chin in his hand. “I can’t let it be the reason I take this job.” 

“I really have that much power, huh?” Seungcheol tries to joke, voice coming out strained, but Joshua doesn’t even pretend to laugh. 

“Kind of, yeah,” he says softly, looking down at the table again. 

When they finish their drinks, they walk out of the cafe, Seungcheol almost reaching to hold Joshua’s hand like it’s muscle memory but stopping himself in time. It’s not until they get to the metro station that will take Joshua back to Hansol and Seungkwan’s neighborhood that Joshua turns to him, brow furrowed in concentration.

“There are a lot of things I want to say to you,” Joshua says, “But I need to wait until after I’ve figured this out.” 

“Okay,” Seungcheol agrees, not sure what he’s really agreeing to. “I’ll wait on them, then. When do you need to make your decision by?” 

“Next Friday,” Joshua says, picking at a loose string on the sleeve of his jacket.

Seungcheol nods. “So we can talk then. Call me, when you want to talk.” 

“Yeah. Okay,” Joshua agrees. 

“I just want you to be happy,” Seungcheol says again. “Really, that’s...that’s it. So do whatever will make that happen, because that’s bigger than us, right?” 

Joshua nods, stepping in closer to Seungcheol to lean his forehead against Seungcheol’s shoulder. “Too good for your own good,” he repeats again, quiet. “Thanks.” 

Seungcheol doesn’t say anything, just wraps his arms around Joshua’s shoulders for a moment. When Joshua pulls back, there’s a small smile on his face. 

“We’re really a mess,” he says quietly. 

“Kind of, yeah,” Seungcheol agrees. “We’ll figure it out sometime, though.”

Joshua nods. “I hope so.” 

The next train is coming, Seungcheol can hear the air whooshing in the distance, and he steels himself for another goodbye. “I’ll talk to you soon, right?” He asks.

Joshua nods again. “You will.”

“Good luck, Shua,” he says, resting his hand on Joshua’s shoulder, the one with flowers underneath his clothes. 

And it ends again, with Joshua walking away this time as Seungcheol watches him leave. Seungcheol wonders if they’ll ever stop watching each other leave.

++

“I did something bad,” Seungcheol says on the phone to Jeonghan on his ride home.

Jeonghan sounded distracted when he picked up, but now he goes quiet. “What did you do?” He asks, sounding hesitant.

Seungcheol sighs. “Well…”

“Oh my god, you fucked him, didn’t you?” Jeonghan asks. “You found him and you fucked him.” 

Now it’s Seungcheol’s turn to pause. “How’d you know he was in town?”

“Seungkwan told me this morning. I was debating how to tell you, since I sure as hell wasn’t going to let him do it. But you fucked him. Admit it.”

Seungcheol sighs again. “Kind of, yeah.”

“Choi Seungcheol!” Jeonghan says, sounding exasperated. “Come over, idiot.”

“I already was,” Seungcheol admits sheepishly. 

“God. Idiot,” Jeonghan says again. “Wait, are you okay? I should stop insulting you until I know you’re okay.” 

“I’m not great,” Seungcheol admits. “But I’m okay.”

“Good. You’re a moron,” Jeonghan tells him.

“I’ll see you in twenty minutes.”

 

“You know, I had other plans today,” Jeonghan tells him as he pours them both tea. He’s still in his pajamas at three in the afternoon on a Sunday, and Soonyoung isn’t home, so Seungcheol kind of doesn’t believe him.

“Yeah? What were they?” Seungcheol asks, chin resting in his hand. 

“Not counseling stupid motherfuckers who sleep with their ex-boyfriends, idiot,” Jeonghan says, but there’s no heat in his voice. He passes Seungcheol the sugar. “What the hell happened?”

“I don’t know,” Seungcheol admits with a sigh. “We argued a little. Then we kissed. Then...I don’t know.” 

“I’m interested in scolding you more, for this very dumb thing, but I have to know: did you fuck him on Hansol’s couch?” Jeonghan asks, dropping his outrage for his curious gossip voice. 

“I didn’t fuck him,” Seungcheol says, rolling his eyes. 

“Did he fuck _you_ on Hansol’s couch? I should have known, you’ve always had a thing for —” 

“Stop,” Seungcheol whines. “No one fucked anyone on Hansol’s couch.” 

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Jeonghan mutters, sipping his tea. “I mean, in its history —” 

“Is this your idea of counseling?” Seungcheol interrupts him. Jeonghan rolls his eyes. “My point is we didn’t really have sex.” 

“God, you see the one who got away and you just mess around like teenagers? You don’t even have real angst sex? Sometimes I don’t understand you, Cheol-ah,” Jeonghan says mildly.

“I swear to god, I’m going to kill you,” Seungcheol deadpans across the kitchen table at Jeonghan. 

“No you’re not. You’re harmless. You’re a big dumb sap, and you love me,” Jeonghan says plainly, like he’s reporting the weather. “But it’s irrelevant at the moment. What happened after?”

“We got coffee, we argued some more, and oh by the way, he might move to Seoul.” 

The satisfaction Seungcheol gets when Jeonghan nearly drops his mug is pretty good, Seungcheol has to admit. _”What?”_

“So, you know, that’s been my day,” Seungcheol says, taking a sip of his tea. 

“Well, fuck,” Jeonghan mutters. “Do you want him to?”

“Of _course_ I want him to!” Seungcheol says, voice near yelling. “Why is this a question I keep getting asked? I’m still in _love_ with him!” 

Jeonghan doesn’t react to the outburst, just nods. “But is he still in love with you?”

“You know, Jeonghan, it didn’t come up when my ex-boyfriend told me he might move across the world what exactly his feelings toward me are. And I can’t ask him, because that would kind of undermine him making a fucking decision about _whether or not to move across the world._ So I don’t fucking know. Though apparently next week when he lets me know if his entire life is going to change, he also has some things to tell me. Maybe he fucking hates me. I don’t _know_.”

Jeonghan nods again. “You done?”

“I’m not! I’m not done! Why is nothing about this easy? Why is this the most complicated, awful shit in the world, every time?” Seungcheol’s actually yelling now, his tea forgotten as he gesticulates wildly. 

Jeonghan stays looking at him, waiting for something, and Seungcheol exhales, puts his arms down, and scoots back in his chair. “Now I’m done.” 

“Okay,” Jeonghan says with a nod. “Here are my answers: nothing about it is easy because you love him. Every decision is fucking gut-wrenching, because you love him. Also, I don’t think he hates you.” 

“I don’t know, he could have fooled me today,” Seungcheol grumbles.

“Because he loves you too, asshole. Even if he’s not still in love with you, he loves you. He’s feeling all this frustration too.”

“How do _you_ know?” He asks petulantly.

“Because I have emotional intelligence and logical reasoning,” Jeonghan answers, looking unimpressed. “No one considers moving to another continent when the only people they know there are his ex-boyfriend and his friends unless there’s something still there.” 

“He said it wasn’t about me,” Seungcheol tells Jeonghan, losing his will to argue.

“It probably isn’t. I’m not saying he lied. I’m just saying, if it was really about a new start or whatever, I’m sure he could ask to get transferred somewhere else. New York, maybe, or some other city in the states. If he’s considering taking a job in Seoul, it means he’s open to having you in his life, because he wouldn’t have a lot of choice in the matter.”

Sometimes it pisses Seungcheol off when Jeonghan’s good at this stuff. He doesn’t have a reply except to pout, and Jeonghan looks like he wants to smirk. The fact that he doesn’t is an act of kindness. 

“Cheollie,” he starts, voice softer. “I’m really sorry that everything feels so complicated and horrible. But at least in a couple weeks, you’ll have some closure.” 

“Even if he moves here, I don’t know what that means. That’s a lot of pressure to put on something, isn’t it?” Seungcheol asks.

“It is. But I don’t know, you guys are so annoyingly destiny-dependent, it’ll probably work out,” Jeonghan says with a shrug. 

“And if he doesn’t move here?” Seungcheol asks quietly.

“Then you get to move on,” Jeonghan says softly, reaching out to put his hand on Seungcheol’s. “He gets to say what he wants to say to you, and you get to say what you want to say to him, and maybe eventually once the worst of it is over, you can be friends again.” 

Seungcheol sighs. “You could have gone into counseling, you know.” 

Jeonghan shrugs. “Nah. In the end, I don’t actually care about helping anyone who isn’t you or Soonyoung.” 

“That’s not true. You care about a lot of people. You care about Junhui, and Jihoon, and Mingyu, and Channie —” 

“I’ll admit that I do care a lot about my adult son, Lee Chan,” Jeonghan says calmly, hands returning to his mug. 

“It’s so heart-warming to see such a strong nuclear family in this day and age,” Seungcheol tells him with a serious nod.

“Thank you, Soonyoung and I are very proud of him. He wouldn’t have nearly as much of a bisexual mess if we hadn’t raised him with our own hands,” Jeonghan says, voice sincere. They both last for a moment with straight faces before they crack into grins. 

“I wouldn’t call Chan a mess, really,” Seungcheol defends. The kid’s always had a good head on his shoulders, even when he really _was_ a kid, latching onto Soonyoung in his first year of university. 

“See, you don’t know. You weren’t there for those critical years,” Jeonghan imparts sagely. 

Seungcheol raises his eyebrows. “And you get all the good Chan gossip?” 

“Soonyoung and I are his _fathers_ , he tells us everything. You wouldn’t understand, it’s a special bond.” Jeonghan is still joking, but only a little, because he’s insane. 

“Right. And how long do you get to be his fathers? He’s what, twenty-six now?” Seungcheol asks with a smirk. 

“Until we have a real kid, I guess,” Jeonghan shrugs, but then he pauses, like he’s thinking. “No, even then, I’m keeping him on retainer. What if our real one ends up a disappointment? Which it probably would, with me and Soonyoung at the helm. I want to keep Chan as a safety son.”

“This is the weirdest conversation we’ve had in like a week,” Seungcheol tells Jeonghan sincerely. 

He hears the door open behind him while he speaks, and sure enough, Soonyoung calls out a moment later. “Oh, what’d I miss?”

“We’re talking about how even if we have children, we should keep Chan around as a backup, because he’s turned out better than we could ever really do ourselves,” Jeonghan explains calmly. 

“Oh, definitely,” Soonyoung agrees as he sets down grocery bags on the counter. “Chan has turned out better than most human beings, period. Ours will turn out like a monster for sure. We need Chan as an example.” 

“You guys are so _weird_ ,” Seungcheol groans, but doesn’t feel any rush to leave when Soonyoung walks over and kisses Jeonghan on the cheek.

“Still in pajamas, huh?” Soonyoung asks with a smirk. 

“I was dragged into a _crisis_ ,” Jeonghan says, waving his hands. 

Soonyoung rolls his eyes. “Shut up, you love the attention. Sorry about your crisis, hyung,” he aims at Seungcheol before going back to his grocery bags and starting to unpack them. 

“For the record,” Seungcheol says, looking between them. “I think you guys would make good parents. Bisexual messes and all.” 

“Well, thanks,” Jeonghan says, crossing his arms like he’s very calm about that, but Seungcheol can see the flush on his cheeks, can see the way Soonyoung glances over at Jeonghan fondly. 

“We’d be okay,” Soonyoung agrees. He stays looking at Jeonghan like that, all soft, before turning back to Seungcheol. “Are you staying for dinner, hyung?” 

Seungcheol shakes his head. “Nah. I should head home. You guys do your thing. Maybe Jeonghan will even get dressed.”

Jeonghan checks his watch as he stands up to take their mugs to the kitchen. “It’s almost four. What’s the point?” 

“There he is, that’s the man I love,” Soonyoung says, patting Jeonghan’s butt as he walks by. 

“That’s my cue to leave,” Seungcheol says with a grimace as Jeonghan turns around to slap Soonyoung back. He knows how quickly things like this inexplicably escalate to the two of them making out in their kitchen.

“Bye Cheollie!” Jeonghan calls, barely looking at him as Soonyoung cackles in front of him. Weirdos.

++

Seungcheol has never had a more productive two weeks in his life. He gets another three reports done at work, buys and puts together a new bookshelf in his living room, walks his dog more than strictly necessary, reorganizes and cleans out his bedroom, and takes the time to cook his own meals for dinner.

And that’s all by the first Friday.

“Are you sleeping, hyung?” Mingyu asks him, concerned, on Saturday morning when they go to the gym together. 

The answer is not really, and the bags under his eyes say it for themselves. But he chooses to argue with them and tell Mingyu, “I ran out of eye cream this week.” 

Mingyu doesn’t believe him, but he doesn’t argue, because he’s Mingyu. He usually indulges Seungcheol, and Seungcheol appreciates that about him. 

He fixes Hansol and Seungkwan’s lamp, he deep cleans his bathroom, he calls his parents and his grandparents to catch them up on the unremarkable aspects of his life. He helps Hyunjung and Sojung move apartments, because he hears Sojung complain about it at work on Wednesday. 

He barely sleeps, nervous energy thrumming under his skin at every moment, the closer he gets to Friday.

As it turns out, he doesn’t even have to wait that long.

His phone rings at six o’clock on Thursday night, just as he walks through the door to his apartment. It’s a scramble for a moment as Seungcheol grasps his phone and the dog circles around him happily. 

“Gongju, just — hello?” He manages into the microphone, and hears a familiar huff of laughter on the other line. “Oh. Joshua.” 

“Hi,” Joshua says, voice soft as ever. Sweet as ever. Seungcheol feels a little sick, and walks over to sit down on his couch.

“Hi. It’s Thursday.” 

“Yeah, it is,” he says. “Well, it’s Friday for me, but just barely.” 

“What time is it, like one in the morning?” Seungcheol asks, brow furrowed. 

“Two, actually,” Joshua corrects quietly.

“Is...everything okay?” He asks. 

“I want to tell you some things.” 

It’s a little ominous, but Seungcheol nods. “Okay. Tell me whatever you want to.” 

Joshua’s quiet for a moment, and then his throat clears. “I think you’re the most real thing that’s ever happened to me, and that scares the shit out of me.” 

Seungcheol blinks. “Oh.”

“No, just — let me talk for a minute, okay?” 

“Okay,” Seungcheol agrees quietly. 

“Before you, it was always this thing like, well maybe I loved him, I’m not sure, you know. I was never — I was never sure. But I was sure about you, Seungcheol. I was sure from that very first night, and I don’t even know how?” Joshua pauses to take a breath. “And I wanted to tell you all this, but it was too scary. Too scary to say out loud, even if you were right next to me, even without all the distance. So I didn’t. And then we broke up.” 

Another pause. 

“So I just wanted to tell you. I thought you deserved to know, and I didn't...get a chance, before. I’ve never been in love like this before — if this is what love is, I don’t know if I’ve ever been in it. Just for you.” He seems like he’s finished, but Seungcheol stays quiet.

“You can talk now,” Joshua tells him after a minute. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Seungcheol mutters, legs pulled close to his chest. “I hope you know I feel the same way. I...I knew I loved you for so long.” 

“We should have said that to each other. Don’t you think?” Joshua asks. His voice has lost the edge of frenzy it had a moment ago, back to his usual patient tone, and something about that makes Seungcheol want to cry.

“I’m still in love with you,” he says, because he feels like he should. 

“The feeling is mutual,” Joshua says with a sigh. “I have some more stuff to say, though.” 

Seungcheol nods, before he remembers that Joshua can’t see him. It doesn’t seem to deter him though as Joshua takes another deep breath. 

“I’ve done the safe thing for a really long time. I went to the safe college, stayed close to my family, stayed at the same church with the same aunties and grandmas taking care of me my whole life. I’ve been getting the same lunch with practically the same group of friends every weekend for eight years. I date the same guy over and over until we break up, this stupid predictable cycle. You were my first risk in forever, Seungcheol.” 

Seungcheol doesn’t know what to say to that, so he stays quiet. “I want to take more risks. I’m almost thirty, and my life has been so fucking _boring_. I could do a lot of things to take more risks, I guess, but. This one was given right to me.” Joshua pauses, and then he says, “So I took the job.” 

Seungcheol feels the Earth spin underneath him, sending him helplessly off-kilter. “You took the job?”

“Yeah,” Joshua says quietly. “I took the job.” 

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” 

They’re quiet then, neither of them apparently knowing what to say next. 

“So what happens now?” Seungcheol finally asks.

There’s a pause on the other end, before Joshua says, simply, “Well, we could try starting from the beginning.”

 

 

++

 

 

 

“I thought we were starting over,” Seungcheol breathes against Joshua’s lips as they kiss against Joshua’s wall.

“It was a good first date,” Joshua says with half a smirk. “I can’t wait til we go out again.” 

Joshua’s apartment is still mostly boxes, the only furniture so far being a couch, a bed, and his guitar standing up against a wall. That hadn’t stopped him from smirking as he said, “Wanna come back to my place?” after their date, though, and it hadn’t stopped Seungcheol from agreeing. 

“We could do things the real way this time,” Joshua said over the phone a month ago, voice soft and cautious, and nothing had sounded better to Seungcheol.

The trouble they’re running into now is remembering that they are already in love. 

It’s the first time they’ve done this in months, and Seungcheol remembers very quickly the way his mind sends out a constant frenzied signal of _I love you I love you I love you_ when Joshua’s hands grip his sides, when he presses light kisses to Seungcheol’s lips. 

That night, both of them barely dressed as they navigate around the maze of boxes in the apartment to wash up for bed, the air is warm and quiet between them. Comfortable. 

Joshua curls up in bed the same way he always has, legs tucked under himself as he scrolls through his phone, and Seungcheol just looks at him and thinks about months ago, about Kyla’s photographs of Shannon, about noticing the quiet parts.

Without thinking much of it, Seungcheol reaches over to his phone, resting on a box-turned-nightstand, and takes a quick picture of Joshua, the way he’s curled in on himself, face unguarded. 

When the camera clicks, Joshua looks up with a questioning expression. “Why are you taking pictures of me?” 

“I just wanted to remember,” Seungcheol says with a shrug, only a little embarrassed. 

Joshua looks amused before shaking his head. “Alright,” he agrees easily. “Sure.” His smile is cute, and Seungcheol wants in equal parts to kiss him and to burn this into his memory forever.

 

 

 

Given enough time, Seungcheol builds up a photo album that he doesn’t bother sharing with anyone, content with keeping it for himself. Joshua laughing with an ice cream cone in his hand, his profile while he’s driving, his back against the sky and sand of a beach in Busan. Seungcheol isn’t much of a photographer but he’s good at this, at collecting the moments when he feels that rush of warmth over Joshua, when he gets overwhelmed by the thought that he’s real. That _they’re_ real. 

 

 

 

It’s October, Jeonghan’s stupidly elaborate birthday party, when Joshua rests his fingers so gently against the side of Seungcheol’s neck as they stand in a corner together, joking around and avoiding the spotlight, and calmly says, “You’re the love of my life.” 

They’re far enough away from the music that Seungcheol hears it clearly, sees the honest look in Joshua’s eyes, and this is the kind of thing he can’t take a picture of. So instead he reaches to grab Joshua’s fingers in his own, leans in to kiss him sweeter than he should in the middle of Jeonghan’s party. 

“You’re mine,” Seungcheol says quietly, smiling close to Joshua’s face. 

“That’s really something,” Joshua mutters. He’s had a couple drinks, and Seungcheol likes when he gets like this, warm and tipsy. 

“Yeah,” Seungcheol says with a laugh, squeezing Joshua’s fingers. “It’s really, really something.”

**Author's Note:**

> find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/idlemoonlight) or [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/idlemoonlight).


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